The Hard Way

            I’m so antsy today.  Why, why, why?  Maybe because I couldn’t fall asleep last night—so I did the treadmill routine at midnight?  Or because the stinking wind is blowing knife chill, roaring in the metal eves of the barn.  Or it could be because I reconciled all the checkbooks today and found bank errors.  All that sitting still and bonking my head on the desk does not make peace of mind.

            Actually, I’m trying to coax stories out of ya’ll.  I want INPUT.  Input is great for antsiness. So I’m writing more humiliating confessions: How I Learned Things the Hard Way.

            Here are three lessons:

            1.  I didn’t know that when you put rubber bands around the top fourteen or so inches of a horse’s tail, it’s like putting a tourniquet around somebody’s actual arm. Now I do.  Cost of lesson: about a thousand dollars and part of a tail.  THAT happened when I was a grown up.

            2.  In college, I didn’t know that when you make clam chowder from scratch and you don’t have room for it in your little fridge, and so you leave it out on the stove for a couple of days, and it starts boiling without any heat under it—you shouldn’t EAT it.

            3.  About the same era: I didn’t know that, when you can see actual fabric through the worn places on your tires, you shouldn’t plan to take a really long drive down through the high desert in the middle of the summer.  I also didn’t know that tires can actually explode.  Getting stuck, alone, on the side of a lonely highway is probably not the best thing that could happen to a person.

            Okay – now it’s your turn —