Bluebird’s But Not Crows Feet
What Left Those Lines Around My Eyes And Those Spots On My Truck?
The other day, I bought four rolls of cheap toilet paper for my stash. Sooner than I expected, I dug them out for the usual reason.
Usually, there is an observable place to start unrolling, but in this case, even with my cheaters on, I couldn’t find it.
“Obsessed by a fairy tale, we spend our lives searching for a magic door and a lost kingdom of peace.” — Eugene O’Neill
I couldn’t find the magic door.
Papa had supply issues about those things
That reminded me of my granddaddy making up something about threatening to put a row of glue on the toilet paper to limit use. So I looked for a row of stuck-down tissue. Sure enough, there it was, I thought.
It didn’t just lift off without significant shredding.
On the first use, then the double thickness, one pretty good, the other thin and only somewhat helpful, had shreds attached.
“Where quality is the thing sought after, the thing of supreme quality is cheap, whatever the price one has to pay for it.” — William James
My lesson in California
The situation of the White Bare But Useful brand of tissue reminded me of eating with my son’s family in California. He handed me a package of tortillas one mealtime and asked me to open it. I didn’t see an easy way to do this, so I began to tear the plastic on one end. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him observing closely.
That was when I reassessed and saw the “tear here,” the Ziploc end of the tortilla package.
”It’s okay to lose. Losing teaches you something. Having to try and going through the trials and tribulations to actually overcome, to get there to win, to triumph, that’s what makes life interesting.” — Elizabeth Banks
It’s okay to tear the wrong end of the tortilla package or shred the bathroom tissue. That’s what becomes an article on Gain Inspiration in Medium.
Life is so interesting for humans.
As infants, we don’t know how to do anything but wail when we are uncomfortable. If something gets stuck in our mouths, our reflexes take over, and we get fed.
Later, we go to school, where others reinforce the idea that we don’t know anything.
Following that, with our certificates and diplomas, we receive life experiences that enable us to exist with the help of social institutions, like employment, banking, supply chains, first responders, stimulants, and depressants.
Working through the age of social security availability avails us little except to reinforce the need for caffeine, glasses, and hearing aids.
Keeping life interesting
Without a significant other, a hobby, or abiding interests, retirement could be a return to stimulants and depressants. We form other attachments and involvements.
I have learned that Jackie Chan, although a Chinese and maybe communist, is an entertaining, wealthy one who would make a good Texan. Texas has a state tree and a bird but not a state exercise. I nominate Drunken Master for the Texas State exercise.
Texas towns that were once small have red brick streets
It looks like toilet paper and tortillas are transient. But I think that in fifty or sixty years, those red, slick as slime in the rain, brick streets in Texas towns, laid down during the depression to give people work, will still be there.
Some oldsters have left their names to hospitals, boulevards, and buildings, but some of the best ones don’t even have a coke machine named after them, except Doctor Pepper.
Sam D. Parker is a retired drug rehab counselor communicating the value of increased awareness of addiction, planting, nourishing, and cultivating ideas, images, and emotions about the effect of addictive conditions on the human mind.
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