Now: This may come as a shock to most, if not all of you, but I am NOT perfect. On the rare occasion I will make a mistake and today I made a mistake. Actually, the mistake started last September when we bought a new television for our living room with surround sound and four speakers. Best Buy offered to come install all of it and set everything up for a mere $400.00 to which I said "I don't need no stinkin installation crew!" Six months later, my lovely bride said "Honey, do you think you could finish installing the speakers so we can have this working?"

I had to agree that six months is too long to wait so I put my "Tim The Tool Man" hat on and grabbed my tool bag. After about three trips to the attic trying to fish the wires up thru the wall so they would be hidden, I was beginning to think $400.00 might not have been so much after all! On the fourth trip, I completed the mistake I had started all those months ago. I lost my balance and stepped off of the ceiling joist. Now there are only TWO places you can put your feet in the attic. ON the ceiling joist or NOT on the ceiling joist. When you chose the latter you find yourself at least knee deep in the living room below.

In the .35 seconds it took my leg to stop its downward plunge toward our new, maroon colored sofa, and withdraw itself back to the attic to join the rest of my now quivering body, several thoughts ran through my mind. In order, they were: 1. "That was stupid!" 2. "There is drywall all over the sofa." 3. "You stupid a_s!" 4. "Cheryl is going to kill you!" 5. "You are so stupid!" 6. "$400.00 doesn't seem so much now!" 7. "How stupid can you be?" It is amazing how many thoughts the human mind can process in 1/3 of a second!

Fortunately, I am pretty much OK. I have a baseball size knot on my left ankle and a softball sized knot on my ego but both will heal. :-)

Then: I have always been a sugar fiend. I probably always will be but diabetes makes that tough these days. HA One thing good about living in humid Missouri when you are a little boy who loves sugar are the lumps that form in the sugar bowl. I would often pass thru the kitchen and check the sugar bowl for lumps. If I found one and Mother was not looking, I would snatch it and pop it in my mouth! Before you ask, of course I didn't. Real men and little boys who are going to be real men don't wash their hands first! But I digress. As I became bolder in my life of crime, I began to get caught on occasion.

One day, there were no lumps in the bowl. Mother was not in the kitchen so I decided to up the level of my crime spree and check the canister where she kept the major stock of her pantry. I opened the top and there before my eyes was the Mother Lode of lumps. It was huge! It was the biggest thing I had ever seen. Before I could snatch it I heard Mother coming to the kitchen. Knowing I was going to be caught, I quickly reasoned it was better to reform my evil ways and ask permission first. I quickly called out "Mother, there is a lump of sugar in the canister. Can I have it?" To my shock and amazement she said yes! In a flash, before she could come to her senses, I scooped it up and tossed it in my mouth.

It was a second or two before my little body went into shock and began convulsing, starting at my toes and working its way up ending with my hair! I immediately became sick on the kitchen floor. As I finished Mother arrived in the kitchen and said "Oh yes, we are out of sugar. You must have looked in the salt canister. That will teach you." So much for reforming and doing the right thing! It is a miracle that little incident did not drive me to a life of crime!! :-)