The Pesky Rooster

One of our friends went to his grandparents' farm, and there was a rooster which constantly bothered him, chasing and pecking at him. One day, while his grandparents were away, he saw a rather large bird of prey soaring through the air. The bird suddenly fell from the sky, and a moment later swooped down and grabbed the annoying rooster in its talons. As it began to ascend again, the rooster seemed to look at the man with a helpless expression. But he simply watched as the raptor flew off with the bane of his existence.

Later on, he informed his grandparents that the rooster had been taken by a bird of prey. When they asked him why he didn't try to save the rooster, he replied, "Hey, the rooster was giving me a run for my money. I wasn't about to take on the eagle!"

Things Never to Say

In stories and in real life, there are things that are simply a bad idea to utter. Here are a few examples.

1. "What could possibly go wrong?" This is followed by things going wrong.
2. "Could things get any worse?" Yes, they can.
3. "It's perfectly safe." And then someone ends up in mortal danger.
4. "Don't say that. You'll jinx it." Too late, they already said it and they already jinxed it.
5. "Don't be ridiculous. There's no such thing." Yeah, there is such thing, and it's standing right behind you, ready to breathe fire on you and eat you.
6. "Everything's under control." Sure, keep lying to yourself while everything turns to mass chaos.
7. "He looks really scary and his face is on five thousand 'wanted' posters, but you can trust him." Then why is he holding a knife to my throat and saying he works for my worst enemy?
8. "He won't bite." Then why am I missing some of my fingers?
9. "Don't look down." Nothing makes you want to look down like being reminded that you're a million feet in the air and balanced precariously.
10. "We won't get caught." Five minutes later, you're being dragged into a prison cell.
11. "I have a bad feeling about this, but we're going to proceed anyway." Oh look, we just walked into an army of five thousand hungry zombies armed with bazookas!
12. "Everything's been peaceful for a long time." You just jinxed it, and Smaug is headed right for you.
13. "This will only hurt a bit." Then the dentist jabs a flaming katana, I mean needle, into the roof of your mouth.
14. "This will be easy." Five years later, you're still trying to accomplish a task that should only take five minutes.
15. "I know what I'm doing." Then why did the mutant dinosaur escape its enclosure on your watch, and why is it eating people and destroying everything?
16. "I'll do it later." Then it never gets done.
17. "We'll leave early to beat the crowds." Turns out everyone else had the same idea, and you get stuck in traffic and smothered by the huge crowds you thought you could evade.

Summertime is Here

Summertime is here

Filled with searing heat

Sun that all the people call

awful, hot, and bright

Pollen in the air

Mosquitoes everywhere

Sunny times and painful bites

and burned, peeling skin

Sunblock in the air

Sweating everywhere

Hundred-degree weather

Thousand-degree pavement

Summertime is here

Bugs are drawing near

Oh, how we hope to see

Winter drawing near

Precious Air

My father had been feeling short of breath for about a week. Thinking he must have bronchitis or pneumonia, we took him to the hospital to be checked out. They took him in immediately upon hearing he was short of breath. After doing tests, they discovered he had a heart attack.

That night when I went to bed, it took me a while to get to sleep. I kept thinking and worrying. Worse, I would start to doze off, then suddenly feel like I couldn't breathe, causing me to wake and take a gasp of air. It was likely just nerves messing with my mind. Despite telling myself this, I repeated it a few times more before finally getting to sleep.

The following day, I heard that Dad didn't have a very good night. At one point during the night, he suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe, and the doctors had to put him on oxygen. He told us that he had panicked when he found he was unable to breathe. My mother, who had asthma attacks as a child, said that she understood how he felt.

It all makes you realize just how precious air is.

The Geese

When my grandmother was a child, her mother bought some geese. The idea was that she would keep these geese and get money by selling the eggs that they laid.

The geese were rather ill-tempered, and would frequently chase my grandmother and nip at her ankles. She soon began to hate the horrible geese. So she would wait nearby the nests, and when a goose sat own to lay an egg, she would reach through the fence with a stick and poke at the goose, bothering them and giving them no peace.

After a while, the geese weren't providing many eggs. Her mother eventually grew frustrated by this and got rid of the geese, thus ridding my grandmother of the bothersome creatures forever. My grandmother had won the war.

Restless Indecision

I've been feeling rather restless and indecisive lately. I feel like writing, but don't have a chance to when I want to. Then when I have time to write, I feel like staring at the television or playing video games. When I'm sitting at home, I feel like getting out of the house and doing something. When we're going to a doctor's appointment and a shopping trip, all I want is to go home and relax.

Perhaps my real problem lies in the desire to get away from the tedium, the running around, the stress. When I want to go home, what I really want is to escape sitting in a waiting room. When I want to get out of the house, what I really want is to do something fun, hang out with people, and not be bored or burdened with stuff I need to do. My mind wants to escape into a story when everything is happening at once, yet when I have nothing to do, my mind wants to relax and treasure not having stuff to do. But the fact that I need to stop sitting around creeps into my mind, making me feel frustrated from combined guilt and laziness.

Today, as I was questioning myself about what it was that I really wanted, I realized how much I'm looking forward to the day we've planned to go to the theater. It means I'm not running around the house doing various tasks, or sitting around the house with part of myself restless and part of me wanting to be a sloth. It means I'm not walking through the supermarket parking lot in the blazing heat, or watching my parents fill out the umpteenth medical form, or stuck in a long line because of construction being done on a road that doesn't really need construction. The theater means I'm hanging out with friends and family, enjoying myself and watching movies.

And as long as I'm thinking about that, I'd also like to fantasize about going to northern Alaska to escape the summer heat.

Chatty Cathy

After my friend's graduation party, her father stayed there and talked with her and her mother for a while. My friend eventually went to bed around midnight. Her mother and father stayed up a while longer, continuing to sit outside and chat with each other. After a while, they noticed something rather odd.

"Is that the sun over there?" they said in disbelief.

Her mother went into the house to look at the time. Upon coming back, she said, "You don't want to know what time it is."

Naturally, he asked what time it was anyway, to which she replied, "Five a.m."

When my friend's mother came to pick me up for church, she told me this story, then added that perhaps it was the reason she felt like she was losing her voice. Not only can she talk on the phone with my mother for three hours, she can sit outside and chat with a friend all night.

A Million, Million Dollars

My friend plans to go to college. Of course, college costs a lot of money, and she and her mother weren't sure how they were going to pay for it. My friend signed up for multiple scholarships and prayed for the funds necessary for her college tuition.

Upon graduation day, they began giving out the awards and scholarships that the graduates had earned. My friend kept getting scholarship after scholarship, eventually ending up with over ten thousand dollars worth of scholarships. One of the people giving out the awards joked that she would likely get jumped by someone after the graduation ceremony.

Further proof that God provides... and that my friend is Superwoman.