Life Lessons

When I was just a young (very young) tyke, I remember a conversation with my Mom. She told me we would go to church to learn about God. "What's God?" I said. She told me that God was responsible for making all the people, and plants, and things in the world. In fact, she claimed He made the world itself. I had a vision not unlike the Monty Python cartoon God - a man, a little scary, in the clouds. "But Mom," I said, "if God made the world, then who made God?"

I don't remember a response. I think she may have changed the subject or something.

A little while later, I remember eating lunch at a neighbor's house. My friend's mom had made the most delicious meal I could think of: macaroni and cheese. And not that crappy stuff that takes all day to make either - this mac 'n cheese came from a box. As we ate our food, my friend and I compared fingers. Amazingly, we realized that we both happened to have five fingers on each hand. I remember being unbelievably surprised at this coincidence.

At one time, I thought it was customary to pick your last name when you got married. My father's parents were divorced and I knew that their last name was different from our own. Likewise, my mother's parents had a different last name. I asked my mother why my teacher, Mrs. Etchberger, would have chosen such a crazy last name.

In kindergarten, I pretended to go potty so I could be first in line, and an hour later, I realized this was a very silly thing to do indeed. In second grade, I went to a neighbor's pot luck party and ate enough brownies to make myself sick. In college, I made a similar mistake with vodka.

The point, my Constant Readers, is that life is all about experiences. There was a time when we did not know even the simplest things, and somewhere along the line, we picked up little tidbits of information. Some things, like the very beginning of existence itself, we ponder all our lives. Others, like the size of our bladders, we figure out pretty definitively after an unfortunate occurrence.

Sometimes though, we just forget our past experiences and open our big fat mouths. Like today, I entered the gym and was a bit surprised to see that the check in guy had shaved his head. Yesterday, he had long-ish hair, kind of feathered. Not the most up-to-date hairstyle, but certainly not all Michael Bolton-y and sad. He had hair on top; he had no comb over. I handed him my card and calmly reacted: "So, did you lose a bet or something?"

To his credit, he simply said no and left it at that.