here's some more crap for y'all...

First off, it gives me great personal pleasure to welcome Stove into the open, flappy-triceps-ed arms of the Oprah Book Club!
Stove has taken a soul-searing walk down The Road.
You go, boy. You go.

I wrote the above because he bitched at me about already knowing some of the stories I've presented. Who am I? Asimov?

In other news, I was walking into Dunkin' Donuts the other day. It was raining and everything was gray. Perhaps due to the weather, I was already in less than cheerful spirits.
I passed a pick up truck. I looked into its bed and the contents struck me with a profound sadness. There was an old computer monitor lying on it's screen, a yellow blanket, rolls of Christmas wrapping paper in a large bundle, and a beat up pair of crutches. All soaked with rain.
I thought, "This must be modern day Bob Cratchit's truck, only it looks like Scrooge didn't listen to the ghosts."
It was sad in a despondent way, not in an outrageous way. Like, if there was a puppy or something in the bed, I could have gotten pissed off at the guy. This was much more pitiful.
It reminded me of something I had seen earlier in the week, though I won't say where I saw it. Some guy bought some woman flowers, roses, to attempt to make up for what he had done wrong. The roses were sitting on a counter, completely disregarded.
I was sad for the woman because I knew that flowers were so much not nearly enough to fix what was broken and I was sad for the man who did not seem to realize or know what to do about it.
Here's the deal. If you buy your wife or whatever flowers and she says, "Screw you!" and throws them in the garbage or stomps up and down on them, then there's still something there. If she cares enough to get that mad, you're not done yet. You're drowning, but you might find a branch.
If, however, she calmly places the flowers aside on a counter and doesn't even blink at them, you're under the ice. Don't fight it. Suck the water into your lungs and get gone.

I'm actually in a pretty good mood.