A Mind is a Terrible Thing to Baste

There is a story told about a housecat who grew to believe that happiness was in his tail.

He kept trying over and over to grab it, but all he could do was run around in circles. Exhausted and frustrated with this endless pursuit, he eventually had to stop. And then, suddenly he realized that if he'd just go on about his life then it (the tail, I.E. happiness) would follow him wherever he went.

In my just over a half century of life so far, I have accumulated a huge amount of knowledge...most of which has led to my happiness. Some of it taught and book learned with equal parts of experienced, viewed and heresay thrown in as a garnish. Some of the information is useful like "when a checkbook balance is misread, it will always be higher than the actual balance." This is known as Pythagoras’ Algorithm of Varying Deposits! Also, “a woman’s heart beats faster than a man’s”  and “Pearl Jam is NOT a new low calorie jelly spread for affluent Long Islanders."

But along the way, I have also been able to gather other toadstools of useless information that can hide in the dark, file cabinet like recesses of my brain. For example, "Dr. L.L. Zamenhof created Esperanto in May of 1887 as a universal worldwide language, but it never caught on." And “Glitter is the head lice of the Arts and Crafts world” as well as “Some men should only dance after they score a touchdown."

While my accrued wisdom to date has taught me that “having something figuratively blowup in your face and having something figuratively bite you in the buttocks” are exactly equal and that “Amateurs built the Ark and professionals built the Titanic." I feel that for my information gathering protocols for my next half century of existence, I should try to focus on trying to get answers to the important questions that I have compiled so far.

Some of these queries are like “Why is it that if my wife asks me to do some odd jobs around the house involving certain odds and ends, she gets upset if they end up looking odd as a result?”  or “Is it true that by the time a star would hear a child recite the poem Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star...that child would have blinked out of existence?” or “If a cute barista at Starbucks asks for my name and writes it on a cup, is she flirting with me?” I often wonder if my neighbor, who refers to his wife as a “demon in the kitchen” actually uses witchcraft in her Deviled Egg recipe?

And who is Joe Schmoe? Everyone tells me that if I want answers, I should check the internet like Joe Schmoe or that they pay more in taxes than Joe Schmoe or that they are tired of riding the lousy LIRR trains like Joe Schmoe. Who is this guy and why is he so annoying?

I guess the moral of this story, which is aimed and bolstering everyone’s morale is that at this point in time, is that I do not have all the answers and the ones I do have, happen to be able to just help get me and my family by. But I have also found that many times that to many questions.

Silence is the best answer.