The Power of the Dollar

My brother and I sat down for lunch at a family restaurant just as the party, at the next table, prepared to leave. The party was an extended family, including the two parents, their three pre-school boys, and two grandparents.

We overheard the mother telling the boys that they would be going next door to the dollar store as she gave each boy a dollar. Then, she asked them to give their grandmother and grandfather a goodbye hug.

As each boy hugged the grandfather, the grandfather jokingly asked, "If you love me, you'd give me your dollar. Would you give me your dollar?"

Each boy shook his head, "No."

I thought to myself, "Wow! Corrupted by the mighty dollar before they hit first grade."

Mr. Bean, the Prime Minister of Spain

Is is just me or does Spain's Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodrigue look like Mr. Bean?

Road Rage

Once, when I was a youth group leader at my church, one of the kids asked me why I didn't have a Jesus fish symbol or anything else, that would let people know that I'm a Christian, on my car.

My answer: I don't want people to know that I'm a Christian when I'm stuck behind one of those rolling road blocks in which some $%@$%@#^@ driver insists on driving 10 mph under the speed limit. It's not a pretty site when road rage kicks in.

I'm a much mellow driver now. One event relieved me of my road rage:

I was driving on one of those winding canyon roads east of L.A. at what I thought was the fastest safe speed for that road when a motorcyclist behind me became unsatisfied with my speed and attempted to pass me several times. Each time oncoming traffic appeared from around a bend in the road. Finally he (or she, I couldn't tell with the motorcycle wear) passed me. Fifteen minutes later, the traffic came to a halt. As I passed the accident site, I saw the reason for the delay in traffic. The motorcyclist, who had earlier passed me, drove through (yes, you read correctly: drove through) a tractor trailer rig and fell into the canyon.

Mixed Up Ethnic Food at Fast Food Restaurant

I ordered only one item at the Wendy's drive through: the Southwest Taco Salad. At the first window, I gave them the exact change. At the second window, they handed me two bags: one for the refrigerated part of the salad and one for the chili. Since it was a simple order, I didn't bother to check the contents of the bags.

When I got home, I found that the bag did include the bowl of taco salad. However, they gave me two packets of oriental sesame dressing, a packet of almonds, and a packet of fried oriental noddles.

I know that America is the melting pot of the world but I'm not about to put sesame dressing on my taco salad.

The most absurd funny quote.

I just heard the most absurd funny quote while listening to the BBC this evening. They were doing a report on the immigration problem in Ireland. Evidently, Ireland is having trouble accommodating the large influx of immigrants from Africa, resulting in social tension.

In the report, an Irish women made an unfavorable remark concerning the African immigrants and followed it up with this quote: "I didn't use to be a racist until they came."

I'm thankful that I'm not rotting away in a Kyrgyz prison.

What I am thankful to God for: I'm thankful that I'm not rotting away in a Kyrgyz prison.

That's sort of a running joke for Thanksgiving ever since I returned home from Kyrgyzstan.

For those of you who haven't heard the story, I was arrested for illegal drug trafficking in Bishkek at the end of my summer in Kyrgyzstan. I had no illegal drug, of course, much less was I trafficking anything.

Basically, this crooked cop was trying to shake me down for money. Evidently, Americans are easy mark for this sort of scam.

Between each question concerning drugs, like "Where are you hiding the drug?", he would ask, "How much money do you have?" He was doing this while we were encircled by half a dozen other cops.

At one point, I decided to push pass the smallest guys and walk away. Amazingly, none of them tried to stop me.

But when I got to the curve where all the taxis were lined up, none of the drivers, with the exception of one, were willing to open their cab door. They had been watching the whole episode transpire and, with the exception of that one driver, nobody wanted to be involved.

When we were driving off, I asked the driver why he was willing to pick me up.

He said, "I saw what happened. God is with you."

I was thinking the same but I was doubtful that anyone would have recognized it as such much less an Uzbek Muslim man. (Later on in our conversation, I found out that he's Uzbek.)

How I'm Doing

For the last several months, I stopped corresponding with my friends. It's not that I didn't want to keep in touch with them. There, just, wasn't anything exciting going on in my life to tell. In the last couple of weeks, my friends have been sending me e-mail messages asking how I'm doing. I thought my answer was pretty amusing:

Me? I live the never-ending monotony, of meeting the demands of every day life, that slowly squelches what's left of my ambition to write the great American novel and win the Nobel prize in literature or at the very least settle for the Pulitzer.