Extended Family

It occurred to me that health care has extended the average age of many people to the point where knowing your great grandkids is common.

I expect that my lifeline will be extended further. Perhaps, long enough to know my great great grandkids.

I have three kids. If all my descendants have only two kids and I live for four more generations of my family, there will be 45 people directly related to me.

But if all my descendants have three kids each, that's 120 people.

plus their spouses...

If I have to remember birthdays for up to 240 people when I'm old, I'm going to get incurable Alzheimers even if they find a cure.

Desert Storms

Pain!

Alistair pulled the thorn out of his bloody heel. He wondered briefly if he should just leave it in. Maybe the pain would distract him from the dryness in his throat. He laughed quietly to himself, “thank goodness I got blisters on my back to distract me from the thorn!” He laughed again a little louder. This time the laugh was colored with desperation and a hint of madness. Alistair collapsed to his knees. A story from his childhood rambled through his mind – something about a lady swallowing a spider. “Why would someone swallow a spider?” he thought, “unless you’re crazy.” Somewhere in the pit of a gut, his empty stomach growled its argument that there were some very good reasons to swallow a spider. With the last vestiges of will power, he pulled one leg up and then the other. Then, he began to walk.
Hours later, Alistair’s body stopped. Feeling a growing separation with reality, he glanced down at his bare feet. They were a strange mixture of dirty brown dust over a red burn he didn’t feel any more. Sand grains bounced off his ankles and swirled in little funnels at his feet. Overhead, a bright yellow sun burned the life out of the desert dunes.
Despair rose up and covered Alistair with a smothering tide of hopelessness. The horizon stretched forever in a sea of marching sand dunes. All the same. Each dune crafted from hell’s cookie cutter. Alistair felt the ghost of a tear roll down his cheek.
Without warning, a deep throbbing built up in his chest. Alistair screamed in pain and crumpled over. Heat that put the sun to shame built up and demanded release. Alistair needed release. He raised his hands in the air, every muscle straining against an invisible weight. One hand thrust towards the sun. Darkness created a glow around his outthrust hand. It began to grow until it covered his body. The pains of exposure and dehydration faded as Alistair felt power build in his chest. At some queue known to his body but hidden to his mind, Alistair let go. A brilliant beam burst from his hand and shot into the air in a pillar of brightness. The light and pain faded within seconds.
Alistair let his hand drop to his lap. He had fallen to his knees when the power left him. He no longer stood on sand. The heat had melted quartz sand grains into smooth glass in a circle fifteen feet around him. Somehow, his pants seemed fine. His brain accepted that the same way it accepted what just happened. It didn’t. Alistair felt his mind go blissfully blank and he surrendered to the darkness.


The shadow was a relief. The sun had come back with all its heat and misery. Alistair had been trying to die for the last thirty minutes, but for some reason his body was fighting back. Didn’t it learn its lesson? How much punishment could one man take. The shadow moved and allowed the sun to continue its sadistic torture of Alistair’s eyelids. Alistair decided to give in the fight and he opened his eyes.
Black oxfords stood before him on the glass that he had created. Tan slacks with a sharp crease connected to a black belt and a tucked-in polo shirt. The Hollywood smile reflected more light than the mirror finish of the aviator sunglasses.
“hey, dad.” Alistair forced a hint of cheer into his voice “took you long enough.”

The Sounds of the Season

As I looked out the curtains late Halloween night, I could see a few last hard-core trick or treaters scouring the neighborhood for any fool that was still passing out candy. My own bowl was empty so I reached over and flicked the light switch, banishing ghouls and ghosts for another year. Sigh....in my head I could still hear the happy screams of terror and the excited giggles of three year-olds with a mouth full of tootsie rolls. I paused, before I turned around, to savor the "haunted sounds" soundtrack that we play on a loop. But something was WRONG! The music had stopped! I felt my pulse quicken in my veins. Was this Halloween turning turning into a real nightmare? Without warning, the stereo came back on full force. A low bass vibrated through my bones, while a sharp ringing penetrated my ears drums! It was happening again. Just like last year. I was forced to my knees. Using every bit of strength left in me I crawled towards the stereo. The pain was excruciating. Next to the cd player my wife stood with an eerie smile on her face. She looked at me and laughed. I felt a tear well up in my eye. How could she do this to me? After all these years? I looked at her. She looked at me. Then, she opened her mouth and starting singing along to the music "Have a Holly Jolly Christmas! It's the best time of the year!"

Yes, even before the cobwebs have cleared from Halloween, my wife starts torturing me with Christmas music. It won't stop until after Easter.

Headline: BYU Student Falls Into a Vat of Toxic Waste!

Wednesday Sept 11, 2007

Early this morning BYU Geology student Patrick Darby was blindsided by a fellow student and thrown into a vat of toxic waste while working in the subterranian tunnels below campus. The disgruntled student, whose name has been withheld by campus police, was furious that Patrick had listed Battlefield Earth as a "Worst Movie Ever" pick on his blog.

Rescue workers worked over two minutes carefully pulling Patrick out of the glowing green ooze. Efforts were hampered by four miniature turtles that had apparently been dumped down a drain and had found their way to the ooze. When BYU officials were asked to respond to the claims that BYU's nuclear program, dubbed "The Bronx Project" by insiders, had for years been storing illegal waste under the campus, the college representative kept repeating the phrase " Have you ever danced with the devil in the pale moon light?"

Provo County health officials deny that any mutations have ever occured in the past from falling into vats of toxic waste. Meanwhile, Patrick himself claims that "it's not like I was bit by a radioactive spider or anything." And that he is fine with only a slight headache to remind him of his horrid experience. His only pause came when he thought that maybe, just maybe, he had turned invisible when no one was watching. Only the future can tell what mysterious powers will show themselves after this tragic accident.