When I was a kid my parents limited my Halloween candy to my ten favorite pieces I brought home – and then my theory is they would secretly eat the rest. Every year when I got home I’d dump my bag of candy onto the kitchen table and then act all depressed when I could only have ten. “Act” being the keyword because like any other kid with strict parents I wasn’t going to let them win that game.
Politics and voting has always been a sore spot for me. In 8th grade I ran for Treasurer and lost by one vote. One. Stinking. Vote. Many years later I ran into my Math teacher at a restaurant and reminisced about the good ol’ days when the subject turned to that election. He told me, “Barry, you were horrible at math! Even if you would’ve won that election we would’ve fixed it so you didn’t win.”
There’s an old joke about an attorney reading Goldilocks & the Three Bears to his kids and pointing out all the laws Goldilocks broke - breaking and entering which is a misdemeanor, petty theft for eating the porridge, and criminal damage to property for breaking the chair. Sometimes you can take something so innocent and twist it the other direction.
Talking Quote of the Day: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” – Nelson Mandela
My English teacher in college gave us a list of her 25 favorite books - told each of us in the class to pick one, read it, and then give an oral report in front of the class about the book. This was too easy.
The Shining was on that list which meant I didn’t have to read a thing!