You know what’s really hard? I’ll tell you what’s really hard:

• Blowing your nose while wearing a full set of banjo picks.

• Being patient after somebody says Be patient!

• Doing the grocery shopping without a pen to check off the items on your list and then usplaining to someone why you forgot the toilet paper of which we are in DESPERATE need and was written in CAPS on the list, but no, you got Klondike bars which weren’t even on the list and we swore we would never get them again because we just eat them and then feel guilty.

• Waiting in line to be horse whipped.

• Talking someone out of vacuuming the entire house just because the dishwasher repair man is coming.

• Getting cash out of your jeans pocket at a toll booth.

• Doing the grocery shopping without a list and coming home with the blue bag of Doritos instead of the red bag and being sent to a re-education camp, even though you remembered the TOILET PAPER.

• Holding the door for the person behind you and getting a glare that says you are a typical, insensitive cavemale, and I can open my own doors, bozo.

• Talking someone out of making you vacuum the entire house just because the dishwasher repair man is coming.

• Caving to the demand that you eat every last Brussels sprout on your plate or no dessert.

• Finding out the dessert is Brussels sprout cake with beet juice.

• Doing the grocery shopping and not knowing what a leek looks like and going home and telling someone they were all out.

• Knowing you have embarrassed yourself with the younger generation when, instead of saying “sweet” or “cool” or “duuuude” when a sweet, cool, dude moment happens, you say “neato pete-o” or “douse me with Mazola oil.”

• Climbing a mountain in wingtips.

• Taking apart the dishwasher so you don’t have to call a repair man or vacuum the house, but when you’ve put it back together (and it still doesn’t work) you have a leftover handful of nuts and bolts and important looking do-hickeys.

• Winning the lottery without buying a ticket.

• Lying convincingly to the dentist when he asks if you’ve been flossing.

• Not grasping the mockery/derision/humiliation or even feeling a draft when someone says what do airplanes do?

• Winning the lottery with a ticket.

• Leaving your banjo home when you do the grocery shopping.

• Knowing when to stop with the wisecracks when people don’t seem to be into you.

• Snorking up one of those leftover do-hickeys when you vacuum the house just before the repair man arrives, and hearing the vacuum scream out then fall over dead; a few minutes later, after the dishwasher guy arrives and frowns because the house is only half vacuumed, he dismantles the dishwasher and says “Here’s what’s wrong, buddy. You’re missing your Flanders nut. They’re $98 apiece.”

• Knowing if you should answer the question “Will you please shut up?” when someone asks will you please shut up.

• Dealing with the pain when people don’t seem to be into you.

• Sifting through the vacuum cleaner bag to find a Flanders nut.

• Buying a new vacuum so you can vacuum the house before the vacuum cleaner repair guy comes over and drops off your old, but miraculously raised-from-the-dead vacuum.

©Patrick A. McGuire and A Hint of Light 2013-2014, all rights reserved.