by Ryan J. Johnson

Here are ten reasons you should laugh, every single day. I love making people laugh and sharing laughs with others, so hopefully this article inspires you to do the same. With that said, I'll start with the obvious ones and work my way down the list. Read below:

1) Have fun!: Whenever we think of laughter, good times, good memories, and good feelings come right to mind. Everyone could always use some more fun in their lives. I personally think you cannot laugh too much, so look for things to laugh at every day and your day will be enjoyable in that moment.

2) Be healthy: It seems the old adage is true: laughter really is the best medicine. Research shows that laughter increases your immune system, burns calories, and gets your heart pumping which in turn gets more oxygen flowing, among many other benefits.

3) Attract Mates: Many people choose friends who have a sense of humor. In fact, most women list a sense of humor as one of the most attractive features of a potential mate.

4) Boost Productivity: Laughter makes you more productive because it gets oxygen rich blood flowing throughout your body and it puts you in a better mindset to tackle challenges throughout the day!

5) Bust Stress: Laughter is proven to reduce levels of the stress hormones cortisol and epinephrine in the body. So if you're stressed, laugh it off!

6) Look, Stay, and Feel Young: When you laugh, you tone the muscles in your face. The bloodflow also keeps your skin healthy, and you just look more fun and young when you let go and laugh!

7) Fight Depression: This one may seem pretty redundant, but laughter just makes your whole day better. It puts you in a better mood. It makes you sleep better, and people who laugh a lot do not need to rely on anti-depressants.

8) Control Your Blood Pressure: Again, reducing stress hormones reduces blood pressure which keeps you strong and healthy!

9) Feel Amazing: All of the benefits of laughter seem to overlap. Laughter increases "feel-good molecules" called endorphins which give you a sense of euphoria and can alleviate pain in the body.

10) Share: When you share a laugh with someone, there's no other beautiful feeling like it.

I hope you enjoyed my article on the beauty of laughter. Try to laugh more and your life will improve and be more enjoyable. It has to! Watch some more comedies, watch silly video clips on YouTube, hang out with funny people, and just look to laugh. I hope you found this article helpful.

Watch free silly videos via email by subscribing to the Laugh Letter at http://www.laughletter.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Ryan_J._Johnson

In 2012 the end of the world is nigh. Just before Christmas 2012, apparently. It's that time of the decade once again, we're overdue a fresh round of global wipeout. And who says so? The Mayans, by all accounts. An ancient civilization that occupied large tracts of Central America, from around 1800BC until environmental change, over population and the arrival of the Spanish Conquistadores some 2000 thousand years later caused their societal collapse.

The Mayan were a culturally rich people, gifted with architecture, mathematics and astrological understanding. During their cultural growth, they found a way to track time, by way of a rather complex calendar system. It's a part of that system that's currently being hawked in seminars, books and across the internet, to promote the latest end of the world predictions.

Forgive me for being cynical but 2012 is the end of the world? First, I rather hope not. And second let's check the stats. From the time that we, as a species, discovered how to 'spread the word', we've actually got pretty good at it. Particularly when it comes to the proliferation of bad news. I'd go as far as saying we're positively expert at it. We embrace bad news with open arms.

And that's why bad news spreads like wild-fire. Regardless of the source, if it's doom and gloom, we want a slice. Heck, give me a double helping. Regarding the 2012 prophecies, I think we're onto dessert. Despite the fact that no one has anything tangible to bring to the table, we're still swallowing up the demise of life as we know it like it's on sale at Wal-Mart.

The fact is (and there are quite a few) the Mayans didn't predict anything. The famed Mayan calendar was created as a means of tracking time. It wasn't constructed for the sole purpose of predictions and prophecies. There's no doubt that the long count calendar was used to forecast crop sowing and yielding and other similar cultural and/or natural events. But the Mayans weren't prophetic by nature.

They were definitely superstitious; they believed in a myriad of different Gods. However there's no relation between their superstitious beliefs and the 2012 end of the world prophecies. There's no doubt that the calendar ends. Much in the same way that our Gregorian calendar does. And granted, our calendar does not last for 5,125.36 years.We generally take things year by year. Call us modern, but we like yearly time spans.

The Mayan calendar ends because the specified time line is simply 5,125.36 years. And here's a little secret: It just starts all over again. It's worth bearing in mind that any form of narrative relating to the 2012 end of the world predictions generates money. Check out bookstores, search online - listen to the news. Someone, somewhere, has an opinion on it. And don't think for one minute that their opinions are given for free.

Bearing all the above in mind, I think it's safe to say that we don't need to build an underground backyard bunker just yet. Life on earth will, at some point, cease to exist. But not because an ancient culture allegedly said so. As far as I'm concerned, I'm erring on the side of veracity. Plus, I rather like living on the third rock from the sun. I remain hopeful that it will still be here come 2013.

In closing, here's a little perspective: past and present, there are currently in excess of 200 similar predictions. And counting.

I like to balance facts with reason and treat rumor with an open mind. Whilst I'm not in the business of being a professional cynic, I do try to err on the side of factual information. The Mayan prophecies are a growing source of confusion and the Mayan calendar right along with it.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Andria_Thompson

Ever wonder what defining event twists a person just enough to make them want to be a horror writer? News flash: There is no one single defining event. Usually, there is no cluster of defining events, either. There are just those of us who like scaring the hell out of people and as a result seek out a career in horror fiction (or filmmaking, script writing, game designing, painting, etc–you get the idea). Some of us are just cut from a different, darker ilk than most. Really, that’s all there is to it. Boy, wasn’t that the safe answer? And, wouldn’t we all like to think that’s how it really is, ‘some of us are a little different is all.’ Yeah, that’d be the safe, easy thing to say and believe. However, this is not always the case. The exact opposite is sometimes the reason a person turns to the darker side. Sometimes it’s the only way they can kill and maim without actually doing jail time for the crime. Nah, really, I’m just messing with you.

Want to know how one horror writer’s life was influenced by outside events? Well, here’s an example scene from a day in my life as a small child.

It was Monday morning, and as usual, before sunrise, my mom dropped me off at Granny’s house. Granny only lived a few hundred feet from our house, so the trek from bed to babysitter’s house wasn’t anything overly stressful for any of us. During the summer months, Mondays were killing days. We had chickens, loads of chickens, two coops that almost equaled the size of the barn, full to the rafters with clucking, pecking, scratching, setting hens and a handful of roosters. On Mondays, we killed chickens. The result of a bloody day would be about twenty chickens, some whole, others cut-up for frying, cooling in the freezer for our Sunday dinners. This one particular Monday that my mind keeps calling up was around 1978 or 1979–I was four or five years old.

The sky was bright blue, the color of blue that only happens at the beginning of summer in the Appalachians. White puffs of clouds rolled by and birds dotted the sky here and there. The breeze was warm, low and steady–just stiff enough to ruffle my hair and the leaves and grass. Granny had a portable cage that held about fifteen to twenty chickens, depending on how big they were. The cage, set up at the bottom of the large, flat yard, sat next to a milking stool and a chopping block, which was only a piece of a tree that did not end up in the fireplace.

Granny took to the milking stool. The chickens amped up the clucking from the small cage. With the hatchet-edge already tested and honed to near razor sharpness, Granny laid it in the grass by the stool. Pulling the cage a bit closer, she shushed the chickens with a singsong voice and a smile on her face. She was never mean about killing, see. It was just something that had to be done if we were to eat during the winter months. No guilt. No fuss. No passing the hatchet to someone else–it was just part of our job as the women of the large family.

Granny opened the cage door, reached in, snagged a fat hen and closed the door but did not lock it, just propped her left foot against it. She hugged the hen to her chest, still shushing and cooing to it, and reached down for the hatchet. With artistic, skillful, perfect timing and rhythm, (she held the hen’s feet with her left hand, hatchet with her right) she swung the hen down to her side, then up and over in an arc toward the chopping block. Smack! The chicken’s head made contact with the wood. Whack! Before the chicken could protest, its head was lobbed off with strength and precision that comes only with practice. Lots of practice.

Granny tossed the white chicken’s body, now blood spattered, out into the yard so it could ‘run it off’ as she sometimes called it when the chickens ran around without a head, blood spurting out of the neck stump in little geysers. The head she scraped off the block with a flick of the hatchet blade, maybe a little too zealous of a flick for the thing landed right between my bare feet. Its eye rolled around in the socket and its beak opened and closed, opened and closed. I remember its eye stopped moving and it was staring at me, its tongue trying to cluck. It blinked. I did not. We stared at each other. The wind stopped blowing. The clucking of the other chickens faded and I smelled fresh blood. Hot, coppery and mixed with chicken shit. That’s not a nice smell to remember. The chicken head blinked one last time and the eye fixated in the socket, glossed over, and I knew it was dead.

The body, however, still seemed pretty upset about losing its gearbox. The body ran, flapped, fell over, got up and ran. Straight at me. It was coming for its head. Some ghost story of a dead man’s ghost coming back to retrieve his leg or arm came back to me. I looked at the head. Still dead. The body hit my shins. I couldn’t move. The wings beat at me, blood squirted up onto my shorts and legs, shit hit my feet, claws tore at my skin; yet I could not move.

Granny laughed. She laughed hard. Had to wipe tears from her eyes over that one. Yeah, it was funny. But only in retrospect. I didn’t want to hurt the thing that was flogging me, heck, Granny had just cut its bloody head off, that was plenty bad enough. So, I sidestepped and kind of knocked my knees together so it would lose its hold. The headless body flapped past me, ran in a circle three times and keeled over dead as a hammer. Finally.

I looked at my bloody, scratched legs and shat-upon feet, and felt thankful that I’d been barefoot and in shorts–that way at least my tennis shoes and good pants wouldn’t be stained. It’s the small things in life that we were taught to be thankful for back then.

When Granny was all done and finished laughing at the scene, she reached for the cage door again. This time she was set-to on the task. She wanted to finish and clean up before lunch. That’s when I noticed the artistic way in which she killed the chickens. The rhythms and beats of a hard life all being played out right in front of me.

Feathers rustled, foreign tongues clucked. Swish! Cluck!

The cage door opened. Squeak!

The hen was caught. Rattle!

The door was closed. Click!

Granny’s foot propped against the door. Whump!

She cuddled the chicken. Shhhhh!

She swung the chicken…Whoosh!

Chicken’s head contacted the wood. Thunk!

Hatchet. Whack!

Sling the body…Scrape off the head…Thump the hatchet in the grass.

An orchestra of life and death played out in front of me, and I soaked it all in, baby. Couldn’t do otherwise from where I was standing. One day I’d have to wield that hatchet and maybe I’d have my own style, my own rhythm. Maybe one day I’d be the artist in control.

Swish…Cluck…Squeak…Rattle…Click…Whump…Shhhh…Whoosh…Thunk…Whack… Sling…Scrape…Thump. And when Granny was in with the beat, she could really go. She went through twenty head of chickens like nobody’s business.

And there I stood, ten feet away, little more than a toddler, surrounded by half-dead chicken heads and bodies. My legs and feet sported more blood from the killings. More heads and bodies piled up around me. Blood soaked into the soft green carpet of grass that I played in, lay in, rolled in every day in the summer. Feathers wafted on the breeze, some stuck to my bloodied legs and others just floated on the air, up, up, up to wherever it is feathers of dead chickens go.

Granny and I cleaned up the mess, washed off the chopping block and put it back in the barn where it was used as a step-up so we womenfolk could reach the top shelf in the milking room. We gathered the heads into a pail and chucked them over the bank for the crows, opossums, raccoons and rats. We picked up the bodies and placed them near the gravel drive, lined them up nice and neat so that when we plucked the feathers we could toss them in the general direction of the heads. This was futile, in my opinion. With the slightest breeze, the feathers would swirl up and away, covering the hollow and all therein with sticky, blood-soaked feathers. Without a breeze, some of the feathers made it into the head pile, but not many and only until the next strong wind came up the bank.

I was too small to cut up the chickens, so Granny did that, too. I only got to pull the guts out and toss them into the pail we had used for the heads.

And I never could get that rhythm out of my head. I felt no horror at being attacked by a headless chicken, or that I was covered with blood, feces and feathers. That’d all wash off. But, that beat would never go away. It would wake me up at night. Call to me from the darkness. Whisper things–ugly, beautiful things into my ears. I listened. I was a good student.

There was a distinct beat and rhythm to the cleaning and packing procedure but I won’t go there. Not this time. That’s another story for another time.

Sharon White lives in the rural town of Erwin in the hills of East Tennessee with her husband and their children. Her works have been published in both print and online venues since 2004. For more information and free reads, visit the author’s Web site, Inkspot.

Depending on your location, a trip to the bathroom can be somewhat scary. A few restroom toilets that personally frighten me are rest stop toilets, sporting event toilets and the one and only outdoor port a potty. The germs, the smells, and the stories that surround the throne has me contemplating whether to hold it or venture into the bathroom. The following are a few myths about the toilet that I would like to put to rest.

1. Sexually Transmitted Diseases: According to many doctors it is almost impossible to contract a serious STD from a toilet seat. The only possible STD that can be transmitted through the toilet is Crabs also know as pubic lice. However, these lice can only survive without a host human body for 24 hours. Therefore the chance of contracting lice is nearly impossible. Unfortunately for unfaithful lovers you will have to find another scapegoat. My suggestion is to blame it on hotel bedding, or a hotel towel. You have a better chance of contracting pubic lice this way. As for the other horrific sexually transmitted diseases good luck. I would start looking for a good doctor and an understanding new lover.

2. Alligator: Look out for alligators taking a dip in your toilet. The myth that an alligator can get into your pipes and crawl up your toilet is false. There once was a case in New York where a large alligator was found in a New York City sewer. According to the story a few adolescents were shoveling snow into a manhole when they discovered a 7 foot alligator. New York Municipalities did some investigating and found a few small alligators in the New York City sewers. All the alligators were killed with rat poison. Now you can sit on your toilet with a little more confidence, knowing that you will have both cheeks when you get up. Even those sitting on a New York toilet.

3. Toilet seat germs: The toilet seat has the most germs in the bathroom. The bathroom has a ton of germs and bacteria but the toilet seat doesn’t even rank when it comes to the dirtiest places in the bathroom. The toilet paper dispenser, door handle, toilet flush mechanism, and the floor put the toilet seat to shame. Dropping your cell phone on the floor, then placing a call gives a whole new meaning to, “talking crap.”

4. Toilet flush: The toilet swirls counter clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in southern hemisphere. This is wrong, the toilet flushes the same everywhere. The Coriolis effect which is said to affect the direction of the water swirl has no influence on the toilet flush. One world, one flush.

5. John Crapper invented the first toilet: The Minoans of Crete are credited with inventing the first toilet centuries ago. The first toilet actually patented was in 1775 by Alexander Cummings. Cummings toilet left water behind after each flush, which was revolutionary. John Crapper has be dethroned from toilet royalty.

If you decide that the toilet you are about to embark upon is not of your liking. Keep this is mind. Holding it in can be painful and lead to severe negative effects on your body. Your best bet on battling the bathroom is hand sanitizer and try not to touch anything. Hovering or building a nest is also suggested.

About the Author:

Toilets can actually save water. A dual flush toilet can save thousands of gallons of water annually. Don’t forget your bathroom toilet is safe.

Article Source: ArticlesBase.com – Scary Toilet Myths Exposed

The desire started the first few days I lived in Japan. I have always thought that Japanese women were beautiful. Some would say that is typical American. I disagree. That is an easy answer with very little reasoning built into it. The truth is that I am a sucker for dark hair. Now that is something I can’t explain. Some men like blond hair. Why? I don’t know. I suppose it is akin to the reason some people like strawberries and some people like apples. It is just the way we were created. But back to the story.

I love dark hair, and of course, the Japanese have dark hair. It is not the only reason I love the Japanese. It is just one of them. To me, dark hair has a sense of beauty attached to it. As such, my first few weeks in Japan was quite a shock. Everywhere I went I was struck by the beauty of the people. None more so than the little children in school. Kids are pretty cute in general, but Japanese children take it one step further. And then children have that knack for abandon. They live without restraint, full of emotion and energy. That is infectious. Several times I walked into an elementary school feeling rather dull and mellow. It only took one class with a few first graders to change that. Their enthusiasm and wild glee was infectious.

I loved all my classes, but those elementary school trips were something special. I rarely walked out of school without feeling a palpable love for those children.

The final straw came my last year in Japan. I was growing older. I was in love. I was beginning to feel the stirrings in my heart to have a family of my own. I wanted to take life to the next level. At the time, I was teaching at an preschool once a week. The youngest children were three, the oldest children six. The children were adorable. They could barely speak Japanese, let alone English. I didn’t care. Our communication was non-verbal. We played tag and fruit basket and drew pictures of bright vegetables and slurped up miso soup between big smiles. I walked through the halls and out in the courtyards with trains of exuberant youngsters tugging at my pants and every finger clutched by a different child. I would have adopted every single one of them if their parents would have let me.

That was four years ago. Now, I am much wiser (at least I like to think so). I realize that most kids are adorable…until you have to spend more than an hour with them! Then you begin to see how much work they can be. My first true experience with a youngster came not long after my sister gave birth. I love my niece immensely. She is the cutest thing since little cuddly puppies. But when she doesn’t get her way, or when she wants mommy, she can be a handful.

I also realize that the personal schedule goes out the window. With a baby, you don’t make the schedule, the baby does. You may want to sleep in on Saturday, but the baby has other ideas. You may want to go out to dinner with the family, but if the baby is sleeping, you might just have to sit in the car while the rest of the family eats dinner without you. And forget about going to the movies with your wife, unless you have a fantastic sister that will watch the baby for you.

Yes, I think I can wait to have children for another four or five years after all!

Honestly, I have great respect for mothers and fathers. It takes special people to be good mothers and fathers. And being a mother is a full time job. Hands down, it is one of the toughest jobs out there. I know it can be tough, but I do imagine it is also one of the most rewarding experiences life has to offer. That lure is still there, even though my enthusiasm might have been temporarily tempered.

So I was on four or five years until just yesterday. Enter in Karis. Karis is an adorable little three year old who loves her mommy very much. Sunday, her mommy was listening to the church service and Karis was missing her very much. The tears were streaming down and we were just about to call her mother out of service to tend to Karis. That’s when they called me. I thought they just might need a little help pouring apple juice or handing out goldfish crackers. Nope. They wanted me to quiet Karis.

Sure, no problem. Maybe I’ll just amuse her by speaking Japanese. I didn’t. I spoke English and she responded. I talked to her for about ten seconds and then she put out her arms for me to pick her up. I did and she cried for maybe another minute, then settled right down on my shoulder. I spent the next hour holding her and she found my shoulder comfortable enough to fall asleep on.

Now one little girl is not enough to erase all my memories of how difficult children can be. But it did go a long way. It might not be so bad after all to have one of my own.

© Seth Crossman

At some point most of us in our lives have had the experience of looking across the office and seeing our boss coming right toward us, an angry frown on his face, his hands clenched at his sides. Maybe it was in school, watching the teacher head straight for us, that ruler slapping his palm. Or maybe it was at home, hearing the tone of our father’s footsteps on the stairs. We knew those looks, the tone of those footsteps. We had done something wrong.

Our first reaction was to get defensive. We thought of all sorts of reasons that the problem, whatever that problem was, was not our fault. We sent the memo through email, it wasn’t our fault payroll didn’t get it. We mailed off the invoice on time, it wasn’t our fault that the post office messed it up and we had to pay a late fee. We made the report to the best of our ability with the information others gave us. It was Bobby who started the whole thing. Or it was our sister’s fault.

As Americans, we are good at blaming others. Just after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, I watched, like many Americans, as helicopters flew over the area. I watched as refugees were taken to Texas and other places far from their homes. I watched as they struggled to get food and water and find safe, comfortable places to stay. It was a sad situation all around and moved me.

But I was terribly disappointed to see how many news stations focused on placing blame for all the hardship somewhere. FEMA didn’t responding fast enough. The President had failed to take the situation seriously. The mayor should have evacuated people sooner. Maybe, these things were true. But so much time was spent trying to find someone to blame. I remember one reporter asking a woman displaced by the hurricane if she thought the government was doing enough, quickly enough, to help her. This went on for days and days, as people looked for someone or something to blame. And when they found someone to blame, they took a certain amount of pleasure in pointing out exactly how that agency or that person had failed, as though it felt good to be righteous.

At home, many of us have had a fight with our spouse at some time or another. It could have been over an offhand comment or something important that did not get done. It could have been over something as simple as the burned green beans or washing the dishes. At the time, we were sure we were right and they were wrong. And we went to great lengths to prove it. We said all sorts of things and brought up every time we were right in the past and every time they had made a mistake as if it proved our point this time. Someone always went storming away, so angry they might have thrown a glass across the room or kicked the dog.

I don’t wonder if we like to be right all the time because we feel it says something about us. It feels good to be right. Why? If we are always right, then there must be something good about us. We must be worth loving and worth being appreciated. And if someone makes a mistake, we like to point it out because by contrast, we who didn’t make a mistake, must be better than them. We’re smarter, or more organized, prettier, or richer, or more hardworking. And being better than another person makes us feel good.

At some point we all make mistakes though. At some point in our lives, we will be wrong. And the best thing to do, is just admit it. Nothing will deflate that boss quicker than admitting you made a mistake and will do better next time. It will take all the bluster out of him, and later, he’ll have positive feelings about the situation and about you. Nothing will solidify your marriage and your partner’s feelings of love toward you than admitting you are sorry or wrong (even if you are not quite sure you are) or both. It often takes more integrity and character to admit mistakes and failures, and then deal with them, than it does to place blame and try and prove your position. And it is hard not to forgive someone when they admit they were wrong with a sincere heart.

© Seth Crossman

But we have wanted to have children for some time and tonight, we sit down and the air just feels different. There is a tension there, a feeling of impending change almost like the changing from winter to spring. We both agreed we would wait five years to have children, so that we could enjoy life as a married couple before bringing children into the mix. That five years is up. We know what each other is like. We know our faults and our strengths. We know what the other likes and what they don’t like. Life couldn’t be better. But I know life is about change.

As she passes the lasagna, I look into her eyes and I can see the source of tension. It is time. “I want a baby,” she says. I grin like a little kid. “Ok.” I am excited, because I have always wanted to be a father. Being together as a married couple has been tons of fun, but I don’t want to be an old man when I have my children. I want to enjoy being young with them. I want to hold my little daughter’s hand as we walk along the beach. I want to play catch with my son. I want those kind of experiences in my life.

A night, or a fortnight of renewed passion ensues as we kindle a baby making flame. We stop by the mall and for once we meander through the baby isle with more than just a passing interest. I pick up little blue jump suit and matching sneakers and my wife picks up the smallest pink dress I have ever seen. Each of us has already begun imagining what it will be like to have a child.

Then a month later, my wife comes running out of the bathroom and jumps into my arms. We are pregnant! I twirl her about hugging and laughing and kissing. One line keeps running through my head. I am going to be a father. I am going to be a father. The weight of responsibility settles in and I start thinking about what I am going to have to change. I need to grow up now. I have more than just myself to think about. I have a momentary pang as I think about the fun things that we won’t be able to do for some time. No more adventuring overseas. Well, maybe, if we are lucky. But we won’t be able to sleep in on Saturday. I’ll have to trade the truck in for a SUV or caravan. I will barely miss these things, I finally decide.

The big day comes and my wife and I go to the doctor’s office. It is time for our first check-up. The doctor gets out his little sonogram machine and lubes up my wife’s belly that I am inspecting to see if it has enlarged at all. I can’t tell a thing. My wife grips my hand tightly. Then the doctor puts the little nozzle on her belly and I look up at the screen waiting for the gray blurb that is my son or daughter. That’s when the doctor frowns and says, “That is interesting. It looks like you are going to have octuplets.”

I am not sure what happens at this point. Maybe I pass out on the floor. Maybe I swear belligerently. Maybe I choke. Maybe I politely shout, “What!?!” Maybe I turn to my wife and say, “Honey, isn’t that great!” (Yeah, I didn’t think this was very likely either, but I did want to make it known that it is a possibility.)

But you better believe it that somewhere in my mind I am thinking that eight kids was not what I had in mind when my wife said, “I want a baby.” One, maybe two at a time. Ok. Break me into being a father. But eight! That is not at all what I signed up for.

This is the little scenario that went through my mind when I read the headline about the woman who had couplets out in California. A day or two later I read the article and was astounded at the rest of the details. No husband. Six other children already. No job. She was taking fertilization. A friend donated the sperm. All the bills are going to be paid by the taxpayers.

The real details ruined my little imagined story. Seriously, you think about sitting down with your wife (or if you are woman think about sitting down with your husband) and hoping and dreaming about your first child and all the pleasant changes to come, only to find out it is going to be eight! But it did make me feel better that the chances of my wife surprising me with eight on our first go around are not very good.

© Seth Crossman

image courtesy of ewashtenaw.org

The Director of the Secondary School down the road is standing in my doorway. He is drunk and leans in too close when he speaks. “Kolby come outside, it is an emergency, you must come right now!”

I rush into my room to put on long pants. What could possibly be the emergency at 9pm? When I come out of my room the Director is on his hand and knees looking under the table in the living room. At first I wonder if he throwing up.

“Where is the rest of the stereo?” he asks.

“What? You mean the portable CD player? That’s it. There isn’t a rest of it. That’s the whole thing. Now let’s go to the emergency.”

“Ok, but first, make it play some music for me. I want to hear.”

“I’ll play the music later, let’s go to the emergency.”

The Director comes up off his knees and stands up proudly. “The emergency is, we are celebrating a birthday! But you are right, we should go,” and with that, he heads out the door. I race after him through the barrack style teacher housing to where I see four other teachers sitting on the front porch with their feet propped up on coolers of beer. Scattered around them are empty 40oz bottles of 2M, the beer of Mozambique. Mozambicans take their drinking seriously, so it only comes in 40oz bottles. A 16oz bottle would just be an insult.

As I walk up, I count the empty bottles and people. Twenty-five bottles between four teachers and the Director. Even after taking the Mozambican liver into account, that means they are drunk. As I walk up to the group, a conversation in my head begins.

Why are Mozambicans always drunk?

Now Kolby, you can’t stereotype a race.

Fine, I won’t stereotype a race, I’ll rephrase the statement. Why does Mozambican culture seem to promote drinking?

No, Kolby, you can’t think that either. Cultures of the world are all different. Saying that getting drunk and passing out three times a week is wrong is a value judgment based on your American culture. You can’t say one set of actions promoted in a culture is more or less valuable then a set of actions promoted by another culture. That’s ethnocentric.

Well then, how can I say that everyone here seems to be drunk all that time and nothing ever gets done and that is why everyone is poor!

You can’t, you are suppose to relish the cultural exchange.

Now that’s hardly satisfying now is it?

Not yet.

This is stupid. Mozambique is poor. That is fact. Many Mozambicans men drink beer instead of working longer hours. That is a fact as well. If they—

You can’t say “they.” That creates an us-against-them scenario, which is the basis of inappropriate value judgments.

Fine, I’ll rephrase it. If the Mozambicans who drank instead of working extra hours quit drinking and worked more, the country wouldn’t be so poor. These are all facts.

True, but you are assuming that the goal of Mozambican culture is the same as the goal of the American culture, which is a cultural bias. Maybe instead of talking with yourself you should answer the person talking to you before he thinks you are weird.

I snap to and see that the School Director is holding the beer cooler open with a 40oz beer in his hand. “Do you want a beer or not?”

“No thanks, I don’t really drink. What are we celebrating anyway?”

“We are celebrating the birthday of the wife of one of the teachers at the school.”

“So, where’s the wife?” I ask.

“She couldn’t come to the party.”

“So whose wife is it?” I ask looking at the men in the group.

“It is none of our wives. The husband left this morning.”

“So you started drinking the morning?” I say surprised.

“Kolby, why must I explain so many things to you? Maybe you don’t understand my Portuguese.” The Director leans in closer and begins to yell, reeking of sweat and alcohol. “We started drinking last night, the husband left this morning!” Why is it every time someone thinks you don’t understand what they are saying they start talking louder? As if the volume level you speak at and the size of my Portuguese vocabulary were somehow related.

“Ok, I understand!” I yell back, imitating his wild arm movements. “What about school tomorrow morning! And if the husband and wife went home this morning, what’s the point of drinking now!”

The Director and the teachers stare at each other as if this is a strange question to ask and are unable to furnish an answer. My mind jumps in again to help out.

There is no point. Drinking is the point. The point of sitting with friends and getting drunk is simply to sit with friends and get drunk.

Well now, that’s stupid.

Only to you, everyone else here is Mozambican. And really, you should quit having these conversations with yourself while other people are around, it makes you look strange.

The dialog complete, I stand up to address the group. “I have orange juice in the refrigerator at my house. I’ll go get it so I can sit and drink with you. You drink beer, I’ll drink orange juice.” I run off to the house, grab the orange juice and a glass, and run back to the group and sit down.

As I pour the orange juice into the glass the group looks at me, mouths open, as if I’d just lit up a crack pipe in the Vatican. “Kolby,” the Director said, looking at my glass of orange juice with a combination of humor and disgust, “in America, are things very different than in Mozambique?”

“Yes,” I replied, “They are very different. Too many things to name. For example, the beer bottles are smaller.”

The Director stands up, holds up his hand, and points his finger to the sky like a Military General making a speech to 10,000 people. “Then I will stay in Mozambique!”

As he stumbles off to find a tree to pee on I could hear him grumbling to himself, “Smaller beers…I don’t know why anyone would want to live in America…so rich, and can only afford small beers…Americans should come to Mozambique where we have many friends and big beers…”

image courtesy of istockphoto.com

What a difference a day makes – unless you’re going through life on automatic. Scientists are no help. They say we shouldn’t sleep late even if we have the chance. Supposedly not getting up at the same time every day has a negative effect on our biorhythms. Obviously, those scientists don’t have young children.

I try to get up before the alarm clock goes off. There’s no pushing the snooze button. If I snooze, I lose what I hope will be a head start on the day. For me getting up means washing my face, brushing my teeth, exercising, showering and dressing for the day. If I wasn’t running on automatic, I’d stall.

Because I can’t drink coffee, I can’t use it to jump start my day. Coffee pots that run automatically were invented for the millions of people who say that can’t do anything until they’ve had their morning coffee. Maybe Homeland Security should be protecting coffee importers, as well as public buildings and transportation.

Detroit invented automatic shift because drivers were tired of shifting. Because we’re so busy, we travel through our lives on automatic – especially men. They’ll travel for miles on automatic instead of asking directions.

A friend asks a favor, a neighbor needs help, a repairman asks if I can be home at a certain time and I automatically say yes. Later I ask myself why. I realize it’s time to shift gears. I need to give myself permission to say no, but not to say no to myself when I ask permission.

By the end of the week the refrigerator can run automatically. So can the stove and the microwave, but I’m out of gas. Instead of stopping to smell the roses, I smell leftovers to see if I can transform something into dinner. Can I use leftover minestrone to top baked potatoes or did I do that last night?

Although I’ve promised myself this will be the weekend I start reading my new book, the weekend turns into a blur of grocery shopping, errands and chores. Then it begins all over again.

If it’s Monday it must be laundry, car pool, dry cleaning and work I get paid for. The rest of the day, like the rest of the week, is a game of fill-in-the-blanks with miscellaneous appointments. Suddenly it’s Friday again. If I had time, I’d think of a way to slow time down.

KNIGHT PIERCE HIRST takes humorous looks at life. Take a minute to make yourself smile at http://knightwatch.typepad.com

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That’s how I found myself accepting a package of instant noodles in front of forty-five applauding Koreans for showing up to their golf tournament.

I pulled up late; most everyone was already there.

In an early afternoon sun and a stiff breeze, nearly forty Korean golfers practiced their swings, stretched, or chatted amongst themselves about strokes and swings and golf balls. Decked out in pants and polo shirts, their golf shoes shiny and unmarked, as though they had just bought or buffed them, they stopped their action and watched me walk up. Their golf bags stood guarding the clubhouse like rows of soldiers, bristling with shiny golf clubs that seemed to warn away all amateurs. They were prepared, if nothing else.

I ambled through the clubs into the clubhouse. I like golfing, but they had no reason to worry about me winning the tournament. I came to enjoy an afternoon of golfing, something I don’t get to do very often, and support a friend who had organized it. I was a little surprised to see so many Koreans, all speaking their native tongue. I didn’t know so many lived in the area. At the signup table ten confused Korean men watched me and wondered if I knew what I was doing. Maybe I didn’t, but I wasn’t going to let it show. Soon enough I was signed up and wearing my name tag, one of the only ones written in Roman letters. It reminded me of my days in Japanese elementary school and the colorful name tags my students made as they were learning their letters.

The tournament started with a picture in front of the green, the eighteenth fairway cascading into the distance behind us. We took one picture, then another, and then a couple more as a few stragglers came out of the clubhouse and scampered toward us when they saw us lined up for a picture. Everyone took it in good grace; they preferred a complete picture to the slight annoyance of standing still for ten posed pictures. Stereotypical, but most Asian people have realized the worth of “capturing the moment” in still form, its ability to unlock memories and smiles years down the road, and they are unashamed about doing it as often as they can, of what can appear at times as the most trivial of things.

It was strange listening to the directions and rules of the golf tournament in Korean. I know Japanese and at times I thought I recognized a word or two, but still the meaning was lost. I tried to watch for hand signals or facial expressions, but that was a moot point; there were none. When it was over, I just laughed and told my friend Nick he was responsible for the rules, though his Korean is no better than mine.

It was a beautiful day for golf…except for the wind. On the hole for “the longest drive,” I had to hit right into the wind and had the misfortune of getting under it a bit. My ball sailed straight, but much too high, nearly as high as some stadium lights and it barely rolled a foot upon landing on the fairway. Much of the day went that way. I missed some puts, found some woods and the ponds on the only holes that had them. I brought twenty golf balls and went home with five. Too bad I didn’t have any kids with me to do a little “treasure hunting.”

At one point I stopped and watched the young man in the threesome behind us. As they were missing one player and the tournament was Captain and Crew (play the best ball), one of them had an extra shot every time. On this particular hole, they had driven the ball a hundred yards from the hole and were well placed on the fairway. Each of them hit their shots, good shots all of them, and this fellow stepped up to hit the extra shot. The others watched quietly. He swung too hard, hoping to hit it perfectly. The ball squirted a few feet away. All three of them burst out laughing and the young man who hit the ball nearly fell on the ground he was laughing so hard. I have experienced the same good natured enjoyment with the baseball and basketball teams I played for in Japan. Where we in America play to win, they play to fellowship and be part of something.

I remember an instance on the diamond in Japan. We were losing a close game. Every at bat counted. Our cleanup hitter swung for the fences and dinkered a grounder to the pitcher. He jogged out of the box, certain that he was out, but the pitcher misplayed the ball. Our hitter took off as fast as he could for first base and just missed beating the throw. However, he knew he should have been running hard from the moment of contact and as such his headlong sprint was a little out of control. He stumbled awkwardly over the base, tripped, and in the effort of trying to right himself staggered even more and then landed with a belly flop in the dust just beyond the base. The whole bench was roaring and as he came back, he made fun of himself and asked everyone very loudly if they had seen his acrobatics. I was surprised that they weren’t at least a little frustrated with the guy. Yet, that hilarious moment and enjoying it with their friend seemed much higher on their list than getting a runner on base, than perhaps winning a game that afternoon. And now, years later, I can’t fault them for it. I don’t remember the score of the game, but I do remember his tumble, his crazy grin and his wide eyes.

It’s good to have dinner waiting for you at the end of a good day, especially when it is something that you can smell cooking a few holes before the clubhouse. The anticipation and satisfaction of that anticipation are small joys. We had barbecue chicken and corn, salad and salt potatoes and more than a little fellowship. If everyone could have, they would have pulled their chairs up to one small table or sat on each others laps. If we had happened into the clubhouse right then, we would have thought it was a family reunion. A few of the men came over and chatted with us, asked us how we did, and told us of their exploits on the course. The women served us cake and made us feel welcome. I don’t wonder that if we in America stress the individual so much that sometimes we miss out joviality and satisfaction of being part of a group.

The evening was topped off with the award ceremony. Like many contests of the sort, everyone goes home with something, even if it is only a small pack of noodles. A pack of noodles, or a golf club, or a bag of rice and something more: a bond of shared experience.

It has a way of making everyone feel like a winner.

© Seth Crossman