In Their Own Special Way

How do you give thanks?  What does it really mean to give thanks?  I can give a person a dollar or an ice cream cone but it escapes me how I can give someone a thing that I can't see, feel or smell.   Rarely do I give things that can only be smelled, and usually it's on accident.

There is something about giving thanks that defies all logic.  On my birthday, for example, I receive gifts.  My response to receiving these tangible items is two words, "thank you."  I am a cheapskate but this takes it to an extreme!  The crazy thing is that those two words seem to do the trick, and not just for me.  It seems to be somewhat universal.

The whole thing just doesn't make sense.  How can a gift giver be satisfied with a simple phrase expressing gratitude?  It's human nature to want something in return, yet most people are more content with a simple acknowledgment of the gift and a word or two of sincere appreciation from the receiver.

It seems that there must be something deep down inside each one of us that triggers our most complete joy when those around us are thriving.  Indeed, there is something a little more shallow within us that wants to thrive just a little bit more than everyone else, but that joy is fleeting.  Maybe when we get a "thank you" from someone it triggers the deeper joy because we had some small part in improving the well being of another.

So here we are at Thanksgiving, my favorite holiday of the year by the way.  Probably because it involves engorging myself with a weeks worth of outstanding cuisine in one afternoon.  Yes, I like Thanksgiving  even more than Christmas, and, what's more, I have a grown-up reason for liking it better.   I think it's because, in my opinion, Thanksgiving still celebrates what Christmas is supposed to be all about.  Saying thank you for a Gift, and giving in return, the truest sense of joy to the Giver.

It's good to be thankful and it's nice to be thanked every once in a while, even though it defies all logic and goes against human nature.  I suppose, as they say in the Hoky Poky, "that's what it's all about."

Is There a Doctor in the House?

We were probably the last family in the industrialized world to finally buy a microwave.  I remember that Christmas fondly.  You see, up until then we had still been heating our food like the cavemen did, in the oven!  I think that's why I started to like cold fried chicken.  Who has the patience to wait that long for leftovers to heat up?

I remember one time when Mom had reheated something for me in the oven.  I don't recall now what it was but I'm sure it was good.  I was anxious to dig in and she knew it, so she warned me that the plate was still very hot and not to touch it.  As if I hadn't just seen her removing the plate from the red hot oven.  So I gave her some kind of indignant response like "duh, of course I won't touch it."  However, for some mysterious reason, even as the words were leaving my lips, I reached out and grabbed the plate to slide it towards me and freakish pain instantly shot through my fingers.

I replayed the event in my mind trying to determine exactly what had gone wrong.  Why had I grabbed the plate even when I knew very well that it was roughly the same temperature as the surface of the sun?  Mom's reaction was a mixture of concern, anger and amusement.  Of course my sister was rolling on the floor.  I have to admit that I laughed a little bit too, between each shot of searing pain.  That might have been the moment that my parents finally decided it was time to get the microwave.  My ineptitude had convinced them that they needed to take action, and soon.

Unfortunately, grabbing hot plates wasn't my only flaw.  We lived quite far away from the city.  In fact we lived a great distance from pretty much everything.  There were people who lived in more secluded areas than we did, but they only left they're homes during certain phases of the moon.  Anyway, it was in a time and place that we didn't worry about locking our doors.  So when the door lock broke we didn't really hurry to fix it.  That is until it was discovered that I had a sleep walking problem.

When I would sleep walk, it wasn't like you see in cartoons with my eyes closed and my hands held out in front of me, wandering aimlessly.  No, I would carry out complex and often bizarre tasks.  On one such occasion I got out of bed and carried my shoes out into the living room, where my parents were still awake.  I carefully placed the shoes in the middle of the room and, having completed my work, returned to bed.  Of course I don't remember doing any of this.  It was all related to me the next morning.

So, with the door unlocked, there was a fear that I would get up in the middle of the night and wander out of the house and possibly out onto the road.  I can't imagine why I would have needed to put my shoes on the road but obviously somewhere in my subconscious was a flare for the eccentric.  The solution was to insert a butter knife into a crack in the door frame with the knife handle barring the door from opening, like an old fashioned door latch.  Apparently it worked, I never wandered out of the house in my sleep.  Although, it did pose a problem on several mornings when I was running out the door to catch the school bus.  I suppose that's why they used a butter knife instead of a steak knife.

I seemed to have a knack for finding danger in the safest of situations.  My first broken bone, for example, happened during band class.  Not marching band, just band.  I was approximately 4 feet, 7 inches tall in the 7th grade, so naturally I played the trombone.  That didn't have anything to do with my injury though.  There is an unwritten, universal rule that says there should not be bleacher risers in a band room when there is a substitute teacher.  Needless to say, I broke my foot.  Well, three toes to be more precise.

I can't really explain why, but it seemed like a terrific idea to run full speed and jump off the risers into the wall directly behind them.  After the first attempt, my foot started to hurt a little bit.  So of course I did it again.  I'm not exactly sure at what point my toes were actually broken.  It might have been upon impacting the wall, or when I landed with my foot wedged between the wall and the floor.  Or it might have been when my concerned friends ripped my unlaced shoes from my feet and began delightedly wiggling my toes asking, "is this one broken?", as I screamed in agony.  It was probably their heroics that saved me from a whole summer of moving sprinkler pipe.

It's strange to think back on all these things.  At the time I never would have considered myself an accident prone person.  Apparently I didn't know myself as well as I thought I did. 

Although it didn't solve everything, at least once we got the microwave I didn't have to worry as much about hot plates.  However, I seem to have passed my dangerous eccentricity to my son who recently kindled a fire in our microwave with some macaroni noodles because he neglected to add water.  For his safety we'll definitely have to discourage him from band and persuade him to take up something safer, like rugby.

Myriads of Nothing

What do you see when you close your eyes?  If you tend to be a smart mouth, like me, then you just answered "nothing" and, like me, you would be wrong.  (It takes a rare kind of honesty to admit that you've just answered your own question incorrectly.)  It's impossible to see 'nothing' because if you are seeing 'something' and calling it 'nothing' then it obviously isn't 'nothing', is it?

The word "nothing" is probably one of the most inappropriately used words out there.  Second only to myriad.  For the record myriad is an adjective, not a noun.  You don't have a myriad of something, rather you have myriad somethings.  Unfortunately the dictionary writers are more interested in catering to public opinion than in preserving language and therefore they have decided that 'myriad' can be used in whatever way is convenient.  Noun, adverb, adjective, preposition, conjunction... it really doesn't matter!  I don't know why it bothers me so much, we all have our pet peeves right?

What were we talking about again?  Oh yeah, nothing.  If you think about it the right way, which is my way, then it becomes obvious that there is no such thing as nothing.  It's sort of like tomorrow, as soon as it comes it's called today, so tomorrow doesn't really exist either.

So when somebody asks what you are doing and you reply "nothing" then you are lying unabashedly to them because in the very act of replying you are most definitely doing something.  The proper, and most honest response would be that you are currently replying to their unsolicited query into your present actions.  That should stop the conversation dead in its tracks.

Here's another example.  Let's say you have just finished drinking a cup of your favorite beverage and someone asks "hey, what's in that cup?"  You might reply, "nothing."  Again, not true.  The correct response would be that there are a few drops of beverage, a little saliva and a mixture of Oxygen, Carbon Dioxide, Nitrogen and a few other trace elements.  Clearly not 'nothing'!

If you need more examples I've got them.  My head is jam packed full of examples about nothing.  In fact, nothing is what I think about for most of the day.  I've tried hard to do nothing in the past, but I always end up doing something instead.  In fact I'm trying to do nothing at this very moment... it's still not working.

Like UFO's and Puff the Magic Dragon sightings, documented instances of nothing happening are very few and of dubious origin.  However, I recently heard a publicized report of a documented nothing occurrence which has shaken my convictions about the existence of nothing.  An inexplicable non-event that has been widely recognized and seems to prove that 'nothing' may in fact exist.  Even in the act of describing the phenomenon, it can still logically be described as 'nothing'.

So, what was this non-happening?  Believe it or not, it involves none other than the President of these United States.  Apparently, according to trusted sources, he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing... you guessed it... absolutely nothing!  I can't explain it, but there it is.  Seemingly irrefutable proof that nothing exists.  Just saying that is a little disconcerting.

I still hold that in most cases nothing is used improperly.  However, when the President does nothing, it can apparently have a significant impact on our lives and peace.  So, hopefully he will keep on doing nothing in the world so that we can all have peace.

Well, I have nothing else to say, which is this:  My myriad went myriadingly along the myriad path until he came to an intersection with myriad directions, so he myriad the myriad all the way home.  Wow, that was liberating like nothing else!