Choice

Choice: (n) selected as one’s favorite or the best.

Webster seems to believe that choice is expressing a preference. Perhaps that is the universal concept.

But the problem with that particular interpretation is that it opens the door to decisions being made that are harmful to others, but can be
justified based upon “the freedom of…”

Does freedom give us choice, or does freedom demand responsibility? And what is the blending of freedom and choice?

Do I have the right, simply because I live, breathe and exist, to move about the Earth at my whim?

Of course not. No one believes that. What we disagree on are the specifics of the restrictions. The debate is about where your choice ends and my freedom begins, and where my responsibility kicks in and your choice begins.

I think the definition of choice needs an addendum.

If we’re going to continue to exist as a human family, cooperating with one another, choice must become a preference without harm.

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Chocolate

Chocolate: (n) a food preparation made from roasted and ground cacao seeds, typically sweetened.

Obesity is a bitch, because it bitches at you because you’re obese.

It forces you to think about food more than you need to, which can eventually cause you to rebel about being confined.

After all, I’ve never seen a prisoner who’s grateful for being locked up because it made him eat more vegetables.

Likewise, even though being fat does require some disciplinary action, removing the finer parts of life–for instance, chocolate– is what the constitution may have meant by “cruel and unusual punishment.”

So sometimes the prisoner locked within the fatty walls must break out and be free.

Matter of fact, it happened to me last night.

I wanted some chocolate.

Realizing that a Milky Way candy bar is in the hundreds of calories, and even a pack of M & M’s has way too much sugar, I did discover a tiny piece of delight called the Candy Kiss, which ended up being just 22 calories and 2.6 grams of sugar.

Now obviously, one Candy Kiss is not enough, especially if you’ve been locked up in solitary for a long period of time, devoid of the pleasure. But sometimes you can convince yourself to hold it to three.

Three Candy Kisses, bitten in half, creating six bites of chocolate, is a mind-boggling, soul-altering spiritual revival, with a good shout of “Hallelujah” followed by a creamy “A-men.”

Sometimes nothing will replace chocolate.

I certainly enjoy my asparagus, but I cannot truthfully say that it is related, coordinated, conjoined or entwined with the marvelous miracle of chocolate.

 

 

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Chock-full

Chock-full: (adj) filled to overflowing

I ended up being a father to many sons. This doesn’t qualify me as an expert, but eventually it rescued me from the dangerous status of novice.

You can always pick out a newbie in the realm of parenting. Mother and father are always overly concerned about how the little one is
thinking or feeling.

Realize this: they haven’t lived long enough to create stable emotions. They drift from one shoreline of expression to another without any sense of meaning, trying to convince you that they are permanently scarred by the most recent disciplinary action.

Often, it was my job to take these children on trips–long ones, at that.

After surviving one car tour from hell, I realized that the key to a pleasant experience with children in a car is to either drug them with cough syrup, so they sleep (which I unfortunately found out was illegal) or chock-full the trip with a whole series of activities which wear them out, causing them to beg for a nap.

Once asleep, children in a car are unlikely to awaken for many hours. Matter of fact, you probably will have arrived at your motel, unpacked your suitcase, turned on the television set before it becomes necessary to carry them in.

If you wait too long, children will tell you they’re bored. At that point, you are at the mercy of their mood.

But if you plan activities, games, music, a stop at a rest area to investigate the squirrel in the tree on the left, creating an agenda chock-full of exhausting possibilities, you will be able to enjoy at least half of your journey with them lying in the back seat–nearly comatose.

 

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Chloroform

Chloroform: (n) a sweet-smelling anesthetic.

I am a phony.

I’m hoping that if I admit it, I won’t have to be accosted by the critics who discover it.

Here is where my phoniness comes to the forefront: I often think about matters which I insist would be intriguing, but if offered the opportunity, I’d turn it down.

This came to my mind this morning when I looked at the word “chloroform.” I have watched television shows where a character has placed this chemical on a
 handkerchief, covering the nose of an enemy, putting him or her into a deep sleep.

While viewing this I have thought to myself, I wonder what that’s like? Is there any pain, discomfort, hangover or headache that would accompany the experience? I am intrigued.

Yet if somebody walked into the room and asked, “Would you like to find out what it’s like to go under?” I would pass.

Any number of situations would fall into this pattern.

  • “I am interested.”
  • “Here you are.”
  • “No, thanks.”

It’s not that I’m a coward. I actually consider myself to be very adventurous. But it’s much easier to envision myself brave than it is to prove it in the courtroom of human events.

I occasionally watch people jumping out of an airplane and wonder if I would actually do it.

It’s ridiculous. Unless the plane was on fire and twelve feet from the ground, I would remain within.

I have avoided friendships, romantic encounters and probably passed up on a good deal or two simply because I could not pull the trigger at the right moment.

I don’t lack experience; I am not a novice. It’s just that in selected moments, I was a coward.

Or maybe I should call myself an “over-stater.”

Yes. That sounds better: “That fellow really over-states his interest level.”

And since I have grown weary of being quite this vulnerable, I shall stop my typing and chloroform this article.

 

 

 

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Chlorinate

Chlorinate: (v) to impregnate or treat with chlorine.

Sometimes I don’t know if things have improved since I was a boy–or if I was just a little wimp-ass. In other words, I have memories of
some activities being very difficult, odd or unusual, which in my life today, are common.

One of those would be a swimming pool.

When I was a boy of ten years, I went to the local pool in my Central Ohio area, and when I got near the water, I couldn’t breathe. The odor, the chlorine, the mixture of too many people–I don’t know what it was. But my head spun and I thought I was going to faint. (For God’s sakes, you can’t faint when you’re ten years old–unless you plan on being the kicking post in your school for the rest of your life.)

Stupidly, I reached out, thinking it was my brother’s arm, and grabbed onto a thirteen-year-old girl, who immediately screamed. When the lifeguard came running up, she explained that I had accosted her, and with my head still spinning, I was unable to contradict her story.

I looked loopy.

The lifeguard came close to my mouth and insisted he could smell cigarettes, so it was assumed I had become dopey and out-of-control by smoking, and had attacked this young girl at the pool.

The worst part was, as my punishment, the lifeguard made me sit on a chair next to the pool for a full hour, as I breathed in the fumes and became weaker and weaker.

But eventually I got used to the atmosphere and it no longer felt like I was sniffing the air on Venus.

Chlorination seems to have improved over the years.

Or I have just stopped being a flag girl for the marching band.

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Chivalry

Chivalry: (n) readiness to help the weak, associated with knights

Leave it to America to take a tradition of kindness to the poor and those less fortunate and attribute it solely to caring for and even wooing the female of the species.

The first insult comes in assuming that women are weaker. Of course, there are plenty of ladies who are more than prepared to carry a lesser
 load. And some gentlemen who are duped into thinking that opening car doors is the prerequisite to opening vaginas.

So it becomes a game of cat and mouse, which, as I recall, is not really a game at all, but rather, a duel to the death, with the mouse always victimized.

It just seems to me that you cannot insist on using chivalry on women without also promoting the idea that they are desperately in need of attention.

I like the original definition. Candidly, there are times I am weak. I welcome a little chivalry–even if it comes from the opposite sex.

But our country is very cluttered by its own tangled web of misconceptions:

  • Women are not weaker–just promoted to be that way so men can feel stronger.
  • Men are not chivalrous when they condescend to women, but rather, chauvinists.

If you’re not sure if you should give a lady your assistance, then just ask. She will let you know.

And then you will actually have an experience in equality.

 

 

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Chit-chat

Chit-chat: (n) inconsequential conversation.

Perhaps the greatest kindness we do to other human beings is to listen to them. But we must be aware that if we point eyes and ears in their direction, we also must be prepared to endure.

Sometimes it astounds me–what people think is important. Even more bewildering is why they think I would feel it is important.

Yet at the cost of the losing a huge wedge of my time, I will stand and listen to people rattle on about their granddaughter’s or their grandson’s innate ability to play piano, beginning with the surprising revelation that at age five they had mastered “Chopsticks.”

On top of this. visual aids suddenly appear. Yes, pictures come out of purses and wallets. (This requires that I comment on how attractive the children are, no matter how much their features may contradict my praise.)

It’s called chit-chat. And the main problem with it is, once you’ve been targeted as a victim, you lose hours of time for very little appreciation.

After all, nobody walks away and says, “That guy is a magnificent listener!” Actually, they stroll away thinking how interesting they must have been–for me to remain for so long.

Yes. I end up encouraging a verbal criminal–someone who forces himself on other humans, raping them of all sensibility.

Chit-chat is often used to avoid real conversation about pertinent issues. It’s a way of saying “I like you” without ever saying, “I love you.” It’s a way of being heard without needing to listen, especially if you develop the annoying vice of interruption.

When the world is falling apart and the meteors are streaming to the Earth and the atomic bombs are exploding in every direction, there will be some person standing on a street corner, boring a friend, talking about his daughter’s amazing second-place finish in the school spelling bee.

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Chisel

Chisel: (n) a long-bladed hand tool with a beveled cutting edge

His name was Michelangelo.

And for those of you under the age of twenty-five, I’m not talking about the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle. This was a real guy who was a
painter, a sculptor and just an overall talented human being.

One of his famous works is called “David.” It’s a statue of the King of Israel when he was a younger man–totally naked, with a non-porn-sized penis.

I believe it’s made of granite. Whatever it was made of, it started out as a piece of rock, and from that rock Mike (shall we call him?) chiseled a human being.

Now, I realize that God’s pretty special because He made people out of the dust of the Earth. I’m taking nothing away from the Creator for such magnificent use of common material. But for God’s sake–Mike made a human out of rock.

So one day, I was staying at someone’s house and they had a chisel, and one of those hammers which is used to strike it. I went out and found a rock. It was not granite, but after a couple of whacks I was able to dislodge a piece of stone from its sedimentary mindset. What was left behind was jagged, coarse and ugly. The statue of David, on the other hand, is smooth, glistening and skin-like.

It just made me stand back and gasp in wonder.

Even though it’s popular nowadays to chronicle the evil perpetrated by the human race so as to plump up ratings and give people who own two suits and three ties a chance to go on television and talk about their opinions, I would like to stop for one second and admire, with great joy, a human being who could take a chisel and a hammer and pull a human likeness from a hunk of rock.

 

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Chirpy

Chirpy: (adj) cheerful and lively.

Coming upon the dead body of the strangled prostitute, the young woman declared, “At least she’s with Jesus.”

That is classic “chirpy”–the optimistic thought which is suddenly expressed at what certainly is an inopportune time.

It reminds me of an occasion when I was traveling with my music group and our vehicle caught on fire. We were standing about a hundred
 yards away from it, watching it burn so as to not endanger ourselves with a possible exploding gas tank.

We were only able to salvage our cooler from the fiasco. One of the young ladies from the group, sitting on the cooler, remarked, “I think we have Coca-Cola and Fritos in the cooler.”

I know she meant well–but it seemed that I was commanded by the heavens to scream at her over such simplistic optimism.

When is “chirpy” an expression of good cheer instead of an annoying bird sound, pecking at our aggravation? Now, there’s a good question.

My conclusion has always been, if a statement is not going to build the faith of those around you, it’s best to honor the silence.

 

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Chiropractor

Chiropractor: (n) a practitioner of the system of medicine based on the treatment of misaligned joints.

Some people swear by them, some people swear at them.

Chiropractors, that is.

A friend of mine, when speaking about chiropractors, once suggested that they all must have gone to the University of Oregon.

This prompted me to ask, “Why do you say that?”

“Because the University of Oregon has a duck as a mascot and chiropractors are all a bunch of quacks.”

I don’t know about that. Please don’t state that as my opinion. I have never actually gone to a chiropractor. I have threatened to do so. There were many times in my life when I was looking for a joint to help my joints.

But I could never quite get myself to go, climb up on a table and be felt up–even if it was for medical purposes.

I’m sure I might get relief.

I’m positive merely getting attention from someone who understood that I was in pain would be comforting in itself. After all, forty years ago we thought acupuncture was quackery–and now it is practiced by many reputable physicians.

So I feel that I am incapable of drawing a conclusion about chiropractors. I do know this: some people get comfort and aid.

And in a time when such benefit is limited, I don’t think we should condemn anyone who provides it.

 

 

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