Traveling down the road of life, I see a computer sitting on the side of the road. It’s shiny, new, and smells of megabytes. I pick it up and press one key. On the screen appears a single word. I stare at the word a moment and keep walking, leaving the computer on the side of the road. I walk, thinking of the word and what it means to me. Do I give it meaning? Does it give me meaning? I don’t think so. That would be weird. So, what is this word resting itself upon my brain? Perhaps the next paragraph will help give you a clue.
Incidence have happened recently in my life forcing me into believing in God. All right, I’m just kidding. Calm down. It’s not true. What they have done is make me question everything. I don’t lie much these days and never really did while growing up. Some kids learn if you tell a lie, you can sometimes get away with doing things your parents don’t want you doing. If they can handle the disappointment, it might work for them. I never really did much that needed a fib attached to it, so I never really lied to my parents (besides, I was afraid of the disappointment monster). Don’t get me wrong, there were many things I conveniently didn’t tell my parents. I went to two parties in 6th Grade (my big year in life) that turned out to be make-out parties. In getting a ride home from my mom, I didn’t say, “You know what I did at that party, Mom? I made out with a couple of chicks.” In grade school, this meant I kissed them and maybe even gave them “special” hugs. I also didn’t ask my mom, “What do you think of tonguing? Are you in favor or against the practice? What do you do with dad?” This conversation never took place, but I never really said anything about what happened. I never told my parents to this day what actually happened at those parties (not that I’m afraid or anything, I’ll get to it someday).
I was also the master of my own bay area nation (I hope I wasn’t too subtle) when I was a kid, but I didn’t tell my parents every time I did it (or any of the times I did it). I left it up to their imaginations to decide whether I did that kind of thing. My dad was quite a horny guy, so I assume he knew what was going on when I was alone in my room all those hours. Though I wonder how much my dad knew. He has commented quite often to people that I would spend hours in my room playing music. He only assumed I was playing music the whole time. I played and composed music for hours in my room, but it didn’t happen as often as he might have thought it was happening. There are some things parents just don’t need to know.
I hope the last paragraph cleared things up about the word on the computer screen. What? You don’t know what the word was? Maybe this next paragraph will clear the muddy dirt filled waters of your mind.
I’m lazy. I do my share of tasks such as mowing the lawn, taking out the trash, and paying the bills (when I have the money to pay the bills), but when it comes right down to it, I’m lazy. I could be someone in this world right now (Milli Vanilli come to mind) if I just got off my perfect amount of “roundosity” (my wife’s word, not mine) and actively pursued a life in the circus. I can juggle. I can ride a unicycle. I personify the heart of a clown (though I’d refuse to wear the psychotic clown make-up). I could have graduated from clown college with a degree in tripping over imaginary objects by now instead of a degree in English Composition from CSUSB which I’m currently using to write this paper. Okay, I never wanted to graduate from clown college (but I can juggle and ride a unicycle with enough practice). I have fantastic music and writing just sitting in my room on my computer and on audio tapes the world may never hear because I’m lazy (I’m so lazy, I can’t even write “I am” unless it’s within parenthesis). I could make a declarative statement that I will vow to send out my “stuff” every week so it can be heard, but who the hell knows if I will. I’ll tell you who. I do. I’ve promised myself this task before and I have done it and gotten a response (can you guess what kind of response?). Nothing has come of it yet, but I still have hope and knowledge it will happen someday. I might have to use my respirator and a cane to push the sides of my mouth up so I can smile when it happens, but it will happen.
If that last paragraph didn’t give you the elusive word that appeared upon the computer screen, then I give up on you. You need to go back to school.
When I was a kid, teachers didn’t have families. They didn’t have wives, sons, daughters, parents, or any part of what could be called a family. They were all single, lived in their simple houses, and dwelled in a land called Nowheresville, which was somewhere outside of town where no one ever traveled. Around Junior High, the teachers suddenly started getting wives, husbands, parents, kids, and all the rest of the people known as family members. By High School, I was shocked to find my original thoughts about the teachers were, sometimes, true. Some teachers were actually single! In college, I was shocked again to find some teachers (now called professors) were neither single nor married. I knew these people existed. Some of my best friends are … okay, I currently don’t have friends that are … shall we say “happy”, but professors! Soon they’ll be telling me Mr. Rogers has had sex. (Future note: Marriage equality was not a thing in America at this time. I used to refer to gay people as “happy” back in the day. I still contend this is an accurate description. They were happy living true to themselves. I still stand by Mr. Rogers having had sex. He had two kids, after all.)
Our perceptions when we are children and as we grow up change with time. I can remember the last time I got toys for my birthday. First, I must explain one thing. My parents gave into whatever was on my mind for getting me toys. I didn’t enjoy getting toys (or the dreaded clothes) I didn’t want, so I regularly took my parents to the toy store and picked out what I wanted. There was very little surprise involved in the process. It was the way I liked it. I was in Junior High at the time of my last “toys birthday.” I went to the toy store determined to buy or have my parents buy toys and did just that. I was a little wiser in my purchases than I had been in the past. I actually economized on the gifts. I knew I was only getting so much money for gifts, so I got the smaller Star Wars Ewok vehicle instead of the larger, more expensive Ewok village. I remember thinking, “I refuse to give up buying toys just because I’m older. I don’t want to grow up. I want to be a kid forever. Get your wand away from me, Time!”
I played with the toys so little even a year after I had gotten them you could barely tell I had taken them out of the boxes. I was still a kid enough to have actually taken them out of the boxes, though. That little kid inside me refused to believe getting older meant doing without toys. Toys were my life. What was I going to do with my time? This was why teenagers were so crabby. They stopped playing with toys and had nothing to do. I was becoming a crabby teenager! If this continued, I would be one of those cranky adults who sits around worrying about bills all day. The teenage years must be the years people wait to receive their bills for the adult toys they were now playing with. There were musical toys, computer toys, and some strange new need I had to rub the inside of my pants. Perhaps I’d find things to do after all.
Most girls don’t understand life. When I was in Grade School, Junior High, and High School, being afraid of getting pushed, teased, and ridiculed was a daily occurrence. The most girls in my classes had to worry about was being shunned from the girl group. This would be a vacation compared to life as a boy. Many times, I sat by myself, not having a group to be a part of or a thing to do beyond eating my lunch. It was when one of the large juvenile gentleman that hung around the schoolyard had nothing to do and no lunch that I had trouble. The girls would look at the happenings on the schoolyard and say, “Oh, those boys are such idiots. Why do they have to fight so much?” I can tell you one thing, it wasn’t my fault. If I had my way, boys would never fight at all, anywhere. It wasn’t a choice, though. It was the juvenile gentleman’s decision. I am a 60’s child at heart as far as fighting is concerned (even though I wasn’t born until 1970). I think we all need to practice the art of peace, brother. Girls don’t realize the terror boys have to go through every day at school, but this is all a part of life as a boy. Don’t get me wrong, girls have to go through enough other troubles in their life to make up for their lack of knowledge in this one area, but it’s not really what life is about. Fighting and getting beat up is the true essence of life.
I love to complain, but I do it well, so I’m allowed. My wife is another one who may complain because she does it well. What do I mean by “complaining well”? Some people whine when they complain. This is bad complaining. This is what most teenagers do. The basic rule of complaining well is to entertainment while you’re complaining. By entertaining, I don’t mean you juggle and squirt water out of your nose. I mean telling a good story. You make the complaint a joke. An example is: “I waited 50 billion years in line at the store when the lady in front of me pulled out a purse the size of a Buick full of coupons from the 50’s.” This is much more entertaining than the following example: “I went to the store, stood in line an hour, and got sore legs. Can you rub my bunions?” This is not entertainment. This is what my job would be if I went to prison. The rule is, if you want relief through telling someone else what a bad day you had, be kind, don’t whine, and entertain. You might get a promising career out of it someday.
Okay, I will now reveal the word that appeared on the screen. Wait, do you remember what it is? I’ve completely forgotten what I was talking about. Well, it was so many paragraphs ago, you don’t expect me to remember that far back, do you? I hope not because it will not happen. Maybe if you look back a couple of paragraphs, you’ll find it somewhere. Sorry I couldn’t help. I hope you find what you were looking for. I hope you get what you deserve.
That would have been the end of this paper, but I have more time to kill, so I’ll say one more thing. Did you ever have a time when you just couldn’t think of anything to say. You meet someone you haven’t talked to in a long time and the taboo subjects keep you from saying anything at all. That blows. Or when you have about ten more minutes left in your day and you’re trying to come up with a thought to write to end your day with. You can’t really think of anything and know you’ll come up with something when it’s about a minute from five O’clock (time to go home). This is like the difference between people who buy new cars and those who drive used cars (don’t ask me to explain, though, because I don’t have time). Given the finances to do both … or how phones have gotten too … and how about those people who watch soccer in other countries. They’re nuts! And one more thing …
Thoughts from Life 
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