Published: July 03, 2008 05:54 am            

Woe is me!

Some people have “one of those days.” I am having one of those years. You talk about bad luck — I’m starting to get junk mail with postage due on it. I have been the victim of bad luck all my life. I was born naked, wet, hungry, and screaming my lungs out — then things got worse. When I was a young lad, I asked my mother if I was adopted. She said, “Yes, but they brought you back!” Whenever my playmates played doctor, they made me be the optometrist. One time, when I was in high school, my girlfriend and I fell asleep at the drive-in movie. When we woke up, we were parked in the middle of a flea market. O.K., you get the picture.

I turned 69 years of age on Monday and I am thankful for the blessings that my wife and I have in our golden years here on golden pond. However, sometimes I can’t help but feel that life is a carwash and I’m going through it on a bicycle. How about these events to make your birthday weekend a memorable one?

First of all, another 60-foot oak tree next to our house had to be taken down on Friday which made more than a small dent in the family budget. It was failing fast and a definite threat to uproot itself and end up in our master bedroom on a stormy night. Some folks complain that they don’t have a green thumb and their plants die on them — well I seem to have a penchant for slaying giant post oaks. I asked the guy at the nursery what I could do to save my trees and he suggested talking to them. All I can say is, “Rest in peace.” We have only one of the big fellas left on our lot and I pray for it to green out every spring.

The wild pigs really tore our shrubs and lawns up over the weekend. I guess they got wind that our electric fence was going up on Monday. More and more of our neighbors are forting up behind electric fences to ward of this infestation of swiney swine. This was another unbudgeted expense but it seems like every time I make both ends meet, something in the middle breaks.

We hosted the annual picnic social for the Corsicana Newcomers Club on Saturday. This has been a labor of love for the last five years and we spent a couple days of cooking and general preparation for it. Wouldn’t you know that I woke on Saturday morning and discovered that one of our air conditioners had quit working? We got a repairman out but all he could do was administer last rites to the unit and order a replacement for a Monday installation. Of course the dead unit was on the side of the house where all the cooking was going on. Thank goodness the unit on the other side trudged on so at least part of the 50-60 guests stayed cool. Everyone seemed to have a good time in spite of the circumstances. Frank Means even showed up toward the end to take candid photos for exp magazine and make sure there was not a lot of leftover food. The new AC unit went in Monday afternoon and I got another huge dent in the budget for my birthday. At this point our financial situation continues to be very liquid — which means it’s going straight down the drain.

Just when my wife and I were settling down, having a martini, and toasting my birthday and the fact that there was nothing left that could befall us, the mail came. Instead of birthday greetings, I got a very terse notice from the Internal Revenue Service that there was an “irregularity” on one line of our Form 1040 that precluded proper processing of our 2007 tax return. I checked and they certainly had no problem processing the check we had sent them back in April. Anyway, we think we understand what the problem is and promptly sent off the correction. One thing I know for sure is that arguing with the IRS or not responding promptly is about as smart as opening a gun shop right next door to the post office.

Lest you get the impression that my 69th was a disaster let me tell you what my sweet wife did for me. Before she went to town to shop for my special birthday dinner, she left behind the sweetest card I have ever received — it nearly made me cry. I won’t quote the whole thing, but it ended up like this:

“That’s why, as I remember that the years are passing too,

I don’t mind growing older, for I’m growing old with you.

As we both age and our sun starts sinking,

I can’t help but wonder, what the hell was I thinking?”

My birthday feast consisted of lobster tails, rib-eye steak, asparagus, potato salad, sliced tomatoes, and lemon cake topped with Bluebell “Homemade” vanilla ice cream. Life really is good and if life should hand you lemons, ask for tequila and salt.

This week’s cute story. An old farmer had a really nice pond (or tank here in Texas) which he fixed up nicely with a diving board, picnic tables, a gazebo, barbeque pit, and surrounded the whole thing with apple and peach trees. He took a five-gallon bucket down to the pond one evening to pick some fruit and came upon a bunch of young ladies skinny-dipping in his pond. When they saw him, they all jumped in the pond and went to the deep end. They shouted, “We’re not coming out until you leave!” The farmer said, “Ladies, I certainly didn’t come down here to make you get out of my pond naked.” He held up the bucket and said, “I only came down here to feed the alligator.”

See ya later…

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Dick Platt is a Daily Sun columnist. His column appears on Thursdays.

        

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