Chase The Bag

The truth of the matter is that you always know the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.

General Schwartzkopf
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One day last week I was sitting outside on a bench. It was a cold day but the sun was shining brightly. Now and then there was a breeze. The air was very fresh. The street and sidewalk were clear and I was enjoying the sunshine.

Suddenly an empty plastic bag came floating by me in the wind. It was so out of place and ugly I decided to pick it up and eventually throw it in the trash. So I stood up, went over to it, leaned down to retrieve it and just as I did the wind blew it away from me.

I was soon caught up in that famous old game of catch the thing before the wind blows it again. Each time I reached down for it the wind took it just far enough so that I couldn't grasp it.

I began to laugh because I was remembering a day when my brother was trying to retrieve my grandmother's hat which had blown off her head. He was going through the same ritual of reaching it, bending over to pick it up and having it scoot away from him again. My grandmother, who was watching the whole thing, got the giggles. Soon we were all laughing at my brother's antics. Poor Henry, he was just trying to save my grandmother's hat and his efforts became something to laugh at.

What makes something like that so funny is the timing. For some reason, only Nature knows, the object of pursuit doesn't move until you are sure you have it. It makes one think that Nature itself has a sense of humor. If Henry thought he was going to outwit the wind by running around to the other side and, like some third baseman, catch the hat as it came, he was wrong. The wind would simply blow it in another direction.

I'm sure there is an invisible sardonic clown out there waiting for us to try to do something right and proper so it can play it's mischievous little tricks.

Some times the trickster's acts are not so light hearted. He's the joker that hides your car keys in a pocket you would never put them in, he slips an important bill down behind the sofa making you forget to pay it until you get a nasty note from the oil company or the vet and he removes two eggs from the carton inside your refrigerator. He makes you forget the one name you're trying desperately to remember, he makes you forget your phone number only when someone asks you for it and, if he has nothing else to do, he will grab something out of your hand and throw it on the floor. I'm sure you can think of a hundred other things this rascal has done to you.

This malicious jerk is the one who steers you to the shortest line in the supermarket because he knows it's the one that will move the slowest and when you finally reach the front he makes sure the cash register malfunctions. Then when you're bagged up and on your way home he reminds you you forgot to buy the butter which he made you forget while you were there. If you're rushing to get somewhere he will put up a barricade and make a detour or stall a truck in the center lane and create a traffic jam.

This is the same thorny creature that makes your cat run off one afternoon and worry you half to death only to have it show up the next morning dirty and scruffy and demanding to be fed.

This creep likes to make sure that all commodity shares go up except the ones you're holding, that the day after you sell them they split and to make it uncertain who won certain elections so he watch otherwise intelligent people counting ballots.

So the next time the figures don't add up, your checkbook doesn't balance and the recipe doesn't work as well as it did last time, remember me chasing after the plastic bag and realize you are in the hands of Nature's funny man, invisible stand up comic and magician extrodinaire.

DB - The Vagabond
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WINTER QUESTION
(This is not a contest)

What do you think was the most significant event that happened in 2010?

dbdacoba@aol.com

I await your answer.
DB
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