For all the happiness mankind can gain
Is not in pleasure, but in rest from pain. (John Dryden)

But it’s not real.  And it’s important to know that.

In Happy Fantasy Land, 84-year-old grandpa’s don’t die.  I’d love to live there!  Then my grandpa, who has less than 10% kidney function, fluid around his heart, low blood pressure, pre-diabetes, numb & swollen feet and knees that are constantly painful, wouldn’t have to die.  He’d get all better, and everyone would have a party and it’d be swell.

But in Real Life, the one we have to live it, it just isn’t going to happen.  You can say it all you want, but this  isn’t one of those “believe it and it’ll come true” type things.  He’s dying.  It’s not a fun truth, but at least I’ll be prepared when it happens.  It won’t be a shock, it won’t be surprising; in fact, because I can see the way things are, it very well may come as a blessing.  The man needs to rest.  To not be in pain.  To not sit there in his nearly useless body and think about all of the things he would be doing if he could, but can’t.  Can’t.

If this were an animal, we would have had him euthanized ages ago, because it would be kinder. But for some reason, when it’s a human, we have to make sure they lose all dignity first.  We have to make sure that their nearest and dearest suffer as much as possible, until they have such guilt over wanting it to be over that they can hardly function.

I just don’t get how, or why, people do this. Why do we want to make people live so long, when they are so obviously in pain and making everyone around them so miserable?  Isn’t there a point where we can say, “No More!” ?

Having been through school, and not having been one of the “normal” kids, and having a kid who has been through school as not a “normal” kid as well, maybe what we should be doing is teaching the REST of the kids out there that the kids who aren’t just like them, are actually OK.

Think about it, for real. Don’t you remember how badly those “other” kids were treated in school? Be honest. You might have been one, and know it. You might have been the asshole who make their lives hell – you certainly know it. You might have been just an innocent bystander who just didn’t know what, if anything, should be done about it. But the point is – we all know how shitty it was for kids who didn’t fit in.

And like all the anti-bullying ads are saying, in too many words, Stop your kids from being assholes! It’s pretty simple.

I’m not saying that this is going to prevent all of the school shootings, all of the mall shootings, all of the problems in the world…but it sure as hell couldn’t hurt. Something about an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure?

Oh yeah…and parents of those slightly “off” kids? Love it. Those are the kids that will change the world, if you let them.

For every jackass, there’s .5 people who are pretty much ok.

Yesterday, the ratio reversed: there was one jackass, and 2 pretty cool people.

First, the Jackass.  There are times when a homeless person will come in and say, “It’s raining. All I have is these beat up tennies.  Can you help?” And even though our stores aren’t the place you go for direct help usually (we have a main office for that), our managers can say Hell yeah, and get them a pair of boots right off the rack.

Jackass decided that he needed new shoes. And apparently new underwear.  I’m extrapolating from the facts: I found an old pair of scrungy shoes tucked way under a clothing rack.  And in one of the shoes, his used underwear.

Did I mention that our company gives out vouchers by the dozens for people to get clothes and shoes?  And it’s not hard to get them?  yeah.  Awesome.

So anyway, I was a little disgruntled and disappointed with Human Beings  in general. But then came in Awesome Person #1.

Awesome Person #1 came up to the register with 3 umbrellas.  I made a joke about how she’d need all three to get to her car – the rain and wind was crazy.  She said, only one is for me.  I gave mine away to a homeless person today, and thought it was a good idea to have some spares.

Awesome.  She’s buying multiple umbrellas in order to give them away to umbrella-less (and roofless) persons.  Not spending a ton, just doing something really considerate and nice.

Awesome Person #2 came in a couple hours later.  She walked up with a $20 bill and said, “I’d like to donate this to the holiday food drive on behalf of my cat.  She doesn’t like people to go hungry.  She’s not going to share, mind you – she’s a cat, after all, not a saint – but she doesn’t want them hungry.”

So I thanked her profusely and pulled out the square of paper with the turkey printed on it, showing her that we put the name of the person who donated on it to put on the wall.  She has me write her cats name on there, then says, “I have two cats.” and pulls out another $20.  So on behalf of Cloe and Fluffy, she donated a total of $40.  The suggested donation for this food drive is $1.  Awesome.

Because of these two Awesome People, I’m feeling a little better about Human Beings today.  Of course, I’ll find out that they were actually space aliens disguised as elderly ladies, testing us to see if we are worthy of existence ..but  I’ll take it.  And maybe, because I have the cat lady two gold stars on each of her turkey pictures, they’ll let me live.

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Sorry.  I realized today how things can sneak up on you, when you didn’t even realize that it was sneakable.   And it would keep sneaking up if I didn’t wash my hands.  Again.

It has to do with old memories, you know?  Things that were there this whole time, but it took something concrete to bring to the surface.

Today, it was Huberd’s Shoe Grease.  Somehow, I knew it was good stuff.  Couldn’t remember why or where I knew this from, but I decided that I needed to waterproof my boots with some Huberd’s.

The problem is, when I opened the container and saw the grease.  Dabbed some on the cloth.  Caught a whiff of it.  Had a horrible flashback.

See, my step-dad used Huberd’s.  It’s a great product – that’s why he used it.  To grease his work boots.  He used to pay a penny a boot for unlacing them when he came home.  The smell of dust and asphalt and Huberd’s is so clear in my mind now, when a few hours ago it was so sublimated that I didn’t even know how I knew about the shoe grease in the first place.

My first thought was to text my sister.  ”Using Huberd shoe grease.  Trying not to get icked out.”

She replied, “Oh man, haven’t thought of that for years.  Weird gagging in my throat and instant nausea.”

So it’s not just me – I’m not crazy.  I feel sort of bad for bringing this up to my sister, who has enough stuff going on in her life, but who else can you talk to, if not the person who was there with you, sharing the experience?

I tried to mention it to my roommate.  I’ve known him for…6 years?   More, I think.  8, maybe.  In any case, we’ve been friends a long time.  And I said, I’m going to have to have my daughter finish waterproofing my boots.  The smell gave me horrible flashbacks.

He replied, “My knee sure got stiff at work today, but I still wish I could have worked a full shift.”

I guess there are some things that you just can’t talk to a guy-friend about, huh?

Like how strawberry jam and shoe grease can take you back to being an 8-year old being abused by your step-dad.  Or how you feel weird taking money from people, because that’s what he did to try to make us stay quiet about it.  Or a hundred other stupid little things.

But that’s what blogs are for, right?  To let us prattle on about our hidden rotten insides without having to actually see people looking away, desperately trying to think of a new topic.

We went to see The Slants and Men Without Hats the other night.   It was an eventful day – I went to work, went home, picked up a couple kids, got stuck in traffic, got there in plenty of time, had the guy in line give us his spare ticket (score!  we were short one), got seats behind the sound guys, watched a great show, got pictures of my daughter with The Slants, got autographs, left, got stuck in traffic, got home at 2:18ayem.   Then got up at 7ayem to go to work.

But it was fun.  And worth it.  The kids had an awesome time, the traffic accident didn’t involve us, and all is well.  I have video of The Slants portion of the concert, but you can’t really see anything.  But you can hear it, by god, yes indeed.

Overall, it was a great concert.  It was put together by a band called Massive Moth…but I have to say, sandwiched in between The Slants and Mw/oH, they kind of got lost.  The kids wanted to dance, and they weren’t very dance-able.  The Slants opened strong and put on a great show.  Men w/o Hats…well, I couldn’t see much, but I what I could hear was impressive.  They’ve changed over the years, but not for the worse.  They did not disappoint.  And they were smart – they saved “the song” for last.  Well, second to last – there was an encore song.
Oh – and the played SOS by Abba.  HA!  It was great.