Don’t sweat the small stuff

The person behind you in the supermarket runs his cart into the back of your ankle.

The car behind rides your tail while you’re slowing down to find an address.

You open a can of soup and the lid falls in.

Your tire gauge lets out half the air while you try to get a reading.

There are always one or two ice cubes that won’t pop out of the tray.

The car behind you blasts its horn because you let a pedestrian finish crossing.

You set the alarm on your digital clock for 7 p.m. instead of 7 a.m.

You rub on hand cream and then can’t turn the bathroom doorknob to get out.

People behind you in a supermarket line dash ahead of you to a counter just opening up.

Sweat the big stuff

The future of America may depend, permanently, on who we elect to Congress in the next election. The next Congress must include enough members willing to negotiate and compromise, or our paralyzed government will continue to sink us.

Our wars in the Middle East are nearly a decade old and American troops are still being killed there.

These wars were funded with borrowed money and we’re now up to our ears in the resulting debt.

Deregulation and greed have strangled our economy.

The Feds need more money and that means more taxes, like it or not.

We are beginning what promises to be a long and nasty Presidential campaign.

Father and son, #1

Six-year-old Alex complained to his mother, “ I’ve got a stomach ache.”

“That’s because your stomach is empty,” she replied. “You’d feel better if you had something in it.”

That afternoon Alex’s dad came home complaining that he’d suffered from a bad headache all day.

Alex perked up. “That’s because it’s empty,” he said. “You’d feel better if you had something in it.”

Father and son, #2

Ben was returning from the farmers market with a crate of chickens his farmer dad had entrusted to him. All of a sudden, the box fell off his wagon and the door fell open. Chickens scurried off in every direction. Ben was a determined boy; he walked all over the neighborhood and scooped up the wayward birds. Hoping he had found them all, he returned home, pretty sure he’d be scolded.

“Dad, the chickens got loose,’ Ben confessed sadly, “but I managed to find twelve of them.”

“Well, you did real good, son,” the dad said. “You started out with seven.”