It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens: Enjoying the Fruits of Middle Age Read Online Free PDF Page B

bless the czar . . . and keep him . . . very far away.’’ Here are some other ‘‘blessings’’ that we hope will make you smile before we try our best to get serious again:
    May your children be blessed with musical giftedness. On the drums, tuba, and bagpipes.
    May your mailbox be filled with weekly greetings. From the tax service.
    May your children arise and call you. Collect.
    May your stereo play CDs loud and clear. But only ones by Barry Manilow.
    May you receive news of a large inheritance. May it be a peacock farm.
    May you and your spouse receive two letters of good news on the same day: a letter notifying you that your social security retirement benefits will begin immediately and another letting you know your pregnancy test was positive.
    May your neighbors on each side of your new house share your enthusiasm for Harleys. May they be in opposing gangs.
    May you develop an unwholesome obsession for eating garlic by the fistful.
    May your child be a novelist. And write about you.
    Come on, admit it, it was fun thinking about these things for a moment, wasn’t it? But we both know that these aren’t the kinds of blessings Jesus was referring to. In fact, his command ‘‘Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you’’ (Luke 6:27) may be one of the most difficult commandments in history. What? Love my enemies? Surely you’re kidding. But Jesus wasn’t. His death was proof. He forgave them. His words are liberating. Following his commands is not always easiest, but it is always best.
    Thankfully, most of us don’t have a long list of enemies or people who love to hate us. But if we’re looking for those who irritate us, we won’t have to look far.
    Right now I (Phil) am seated at gate C-37 of an airport waiting for a delayed flight. A lady five seats away from me is talking loudly into her cell phone. She is telling her child, who must be studying for an exam (and the forty-seven others seated at this gate), the meaning of words like blurt, fatigued, and ambidextrous . I would like to blurt something about the meaning of the word rude, but I am fatigued. And the more fatigued I grow, the more I am aware of how easily I am irritated these days. My list is long and irritating, but here are just a few of the things that are really starting to annoy me:
    I am tired of people who use their luggage to take up three seats at the gate in airports.
    I am tired of people who leave grocery carts in parking stalls or straddle the yellow line when they park.
    I am tired of children who leave their science project until ten o’clock the night before the Science Fair and expect me to have enough household supplies to help them make something clever.
    When I finally make it onto the plane, guess who is seated next to me? You’re right. The cell phone walking-dictionary lady. To make matters worse, she is traveling with a cat, and the cat’s name is Sweetie. He is in a little kennel at her feet, and he is not happy about it. The stewardess arrives and, bending down, informs Mrs. Dictionary of two rules. First of all, she says, ‘‘Do not take the cat out of the bag for any reason.’’ This is good. I’m all for this rule. The second is way funnier. ‘‘There is an extra oxygen mask on this row,’’ says the stewardess. I couldn’t believe it. The extra mask is for the cat! 1 ‘‘In the event of a loss of cabin pressure,’’ says the stewardess with a straight face, ‘‘please affix your own oxygen mask first before helping the cat with his.’’
    I cannot help myself. I begin laughing out loud. ‘‘It would almost be worth crashing to see you try to put an oxygen mask on a cat,’’ I tell the cat lady. She laughs as if it’s the funniest joke she’s heard in years. And for the rest of the flight we are friends. All I can smell is cat food, but I have learned once again that laughter is the shortest distance between two people. The cat even seems happier.
    Any pastor or missionary will tell