Laughing In Ambush Alley

I just flew in from Dallas yesterday (Me to pilot: "Sir, was that a landing or were we shot down?") and will head off to Ohio tomorrow to do a men's retreat. I won't take Northwest Airlines this time (company motto: "We're not happy until YOU'RE not happy") but will point my Hyundai southward into the low hills of eastern Ohio.

My wife bought me an XM radio several years ago and it is a life-saver. In my rental car in Texas I had to constantly twiddle the dials in search of a station to listen to. I don't listen to country and western because my life's going fairly well right now. I once considered being a country and western singer but I took a test and my self-esteem was too high. Probably for the best: I already knew four chords and it would have been a shame to waste one.

Settle down out there... I was listening to country music just the other day when the doorbell rang so I pulled the gun out of my mouth...

I don't mean to denigrate you country music lovers. And, by the way, country music lovers, "denigrate" means to insult or talk down to.

As I enter Ohio (state motto: "Attention K-mart shoppers") I will certainly see a State Trooper car sitting by the side of the road. They use radar so extensively in that state that people find their fresh chicken is completely cooked by the time they get it home from the store. I think cops cause more accidents than they prevent. C'mon, you see one, you immediately slam on the brakes, try to get your seat belt on, put your cereal bowl on the passenger seat, and hang up the phone. Have you ever noticed that there is always a cop car at the scene of an accident? Coincidence? Hmmmmm.

Maybe it's just age creeping up on me (or leaping upon me from the top of my dresser). I can now go into an antique stop and identify everything in there. I think my blood type has been discontinued. How old am I? I'm celebrating my 40th birthday in December. That will, of course, be ten years late, but that's the one I choose to celebrate. I used to be driven, but now I think I've pulled over, my train of thought has left me standing at the station, two weeks past my sell-by date.

But it isn't stopping me. I keep going on first to one place and then to another, even though I know I will get ambushed by those who consider themselves watchdogs of the faith... or who consider me an evil and unfaithful man. That seems to happen less often than it did ten years ago, but it still happens. My email will run hot some weeks from angry brothers and sisters whose conscience I have troubled.

I'm hoping that if we stay together long enough, we will learn to love each other. I try not to allow divisive thoughts to enter my thoughts, much less my doctrine. I even follow that rule when I do laundry. I don't separate things by color. I put them together and make them learn from their differences...

Life ambushes you. That's just a fact. I prefer to continue laughing as I walk down ambush alley. For example, I have decided it takes too much effort to work out so I just avoid walking by a mirror when I'm naked. I DID find one exercise class I liked. It's called Lamaze. You just do a lot of breathing and there's no reason to be embarassed about your gut; there are some enormous women in that room. Last year I tried a five mile race. I did terrible. I was last and the guy in front of me kept making fun of me. "How does it feel to be last?" he asked. I said, "I don't know. You tell me" and dropped out.

That'll show 'em. Life ambushes you sometimes, buddy.