Could and Couldn’t

Could: (v) expression of possibility

Couldn’t: (v) unable

I don’t think anybody wants to be negative.

Some folks have just found it a safer position because they have surmised that most things fail. I’m also sure there are individuals who are negative because funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
they want to appear mature and cautious.

But the trouble with the two words, could and couldn’t, is that neither one allows for the possibility that something has a great chance.

Even when we venture out and say, “I could win,” we’re allowing ourselves an awful lot of room for explanation if things fall apart.

And if we go ahead and say, “I couldn’t,” we close the door on the adventure completely.

I think could and couldn’t sum up the human race.

We are never so positive that we move with great confidence, ease and style into resolution, and we certainly seem better suited for retreating or rejecting.

Is there another word?

“Might” doesn’t work. That’s really uncertain.

“Should” seems judgmental.

“Would” sounds like it’s ready to make an immediate excuse upon any drawback.

And there’s just something downright arrogant about saying “I will.” There are too many variables in life that we do not control for us to guarantee the result.

So what is the best situation?

I am certainly tired of living in a world of “could” and “couldn’t.” I don’t want to embrace the negativity that goes into being cautious with “could” and dark with “couldn’t.”

Language trips us up because it describes the actual condition of our internal emotions. Eventually, our tongues will confess what is deeply brewing in our hearts.


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Cough

Cough: (v) to expel air from the lungs suddenly with a harsh noise

“Wow. That’s a nasty cough.”

People have said that to me over the years and I to them.

It’s really sad that “cough” has such a bad reputation. Nobody ever praises it for any of its rehabilitating qualities. Once we hear a cough, it remains nasty in ourfunny wisdom on words that begin with a C
 minds until it’s gone.

Of course, the reason it arrives is to help us.

Without the cough, our bronchial tubes and lungs would fill up with mucous and suffocate us. Would we like that better? Probably not.

Seems like we’re really obsessed with being critical of the cough. It comes along to remind us—to tickle our awareness—that things inside us need to be expelled. Otherwise we will never get well.

Once a cough arrives, it really is not trying to make us sicker, but would like us to get better as soon as possible, offering its hack to help out with the whoop.

But still…

We hold the cough in low regard.

Maybe it’s because deep in our hearts, we think anything that happens to us which isn’t whipped cream and candy to possess some level of injustice.

When people get sick and die, we complain—and often turn bitterly to the heavens and say, “Why did God do that?”

No one ever thinks to pose the question to the King of the Universe, “Why didn’t you send a better cough?”


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Cougar

Cougar: (informal) an older woman who seeks sexual relationships with much younger men

What is an older woman?

When I was twelve, I thought my cousin was an older woman. She was nineteen.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

The word “older” is so—well, old.

It doesn’t mean anything.

I will tell you right now what makes a woman attractive. It is not because she has reached her fortieth birthday and still looks like she’s twenty-three. No—the reasons “cougars,” as they fancifully are called, are attractive to younger men are as follow:

  1. They’ve had enough birthdays that they’re no longer fretting over their biological clock—to drop a kid or two before they leave the planet.
  2. They’ve been disappointed enough by men that they have a much better idea of what they want.
  3. They have found their clitoris and are not asking you to go on a quest to locate it.
  4. That means they are able to control their own orgasm without demanding you do something supernatural to acquire it.
  5. They can talk. (And I’m not speaking of chattering. The journey has given them some experiences to share.)
  6. They smell mature. They smell like women instead of honey and flowers. It’s very alluring
  7. And if they are smart, they’ve learned not to bullshit men or pump up their egos, creating monsters.

I’m not so sure I like the term “cougars.” I think it’s rather degrading.

But I think it’s brilliant to distinguish what makes a woman valuable as time passes and realize that she doesn’t have nearly as much to prove—nor as much to complain about.


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Couching

Couching: (v) to express something in a language that is indirect or less than honest.

I have spent half my life trying to find nice ways to say things and the other half apologizing for failed experiments.

We are obsessed with the need to be coddled, even when it’s obvious that we are transgressors. We would prefer that God not refer to us as funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
sinners, but rather, “winners in training.”

We do not want our lovers to tell us that we fumble but sympathize that maybe it was a bad night and we were just tired.

When donning a new outfit of clothing, we expect praise even if the duds make us look ridiculous or over-balloon our appearance.

We are sensitive, but not to spiritual things or each other, but instead to any form of criticism.

So the entire Earth tries to couch what it says and does until it doesn’t want to do couch anymore—and then the bombs begin to fly.

We live in a world that travels from discontent to bombings, never considering that there can be conversation free of lies, deception and exaggeration, which might keep the death toll down at Ground Zero.


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Couch Potato

Couch potato: (n) a person whose leisure time is spent watching television.

Quietly listen or observe the contradictions around you and you will be able to accurately assess what is true and what is just the present jabbering fad.

For I will tell you, it is completely impossible to be so busy that you “just don’t know what you’re going to do,” and still have enough time to binge-watch a television show or an Internet series.

One of these two thoughts does not go with the other.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

In similar fashion, it is highly unlikely that we are on the verge of equality between men and women when every romantic comedy has a female protagonist who is completely dissatisfied with her life of business success and financial gain, but according to the plot of the screenplay, must find a man or she will be despaired.

Likewise, be careful listening to those who threaten that couch potatoes—people who spend more time sitting than moving—are in great danger of shortening their lives.

It’s a toss-up.

I’ve met people a hundred years old who worked hard all their days—and just as many who may have never actually gotten out of a chair.

There doesn’t seem to be any universal reasoning for who gets heart disease, the big C, a stroke or any other variety of deadly disorders simply based on whether they rose from their couch and walked around more than anyone else.

Matter of fact, I have bought potatoes at the store, put them into my pantry, and come back many weeks later and found that they were still edible. Potatoes seem to have an impressive lifespan.

So beware those who think they can sum up everything in life with an exercise program or people who think what you eat doesn’t make any difference at all.

Here’s a clue—an idea that just might have legs and feet:

If you’re planning on binge-watching something like “Game of Thrones” for the next eight hours, just make sure you’re snacking on salads and seeds instead of pizza and Big Macs.


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Couch

Couch: (n) a piece of furniture for seating

Although I am just as guilty as the next man or woman of what we shall call “greedy” prayers—those wishes and supplications we make to God and the universe to improve our bank accounts—I am also fully aware that some of the best times of my life transpired when I was funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
unencumbered with the desire for finance, and found great joy in simply trying to survive.

There were many aspects of that process. Let me boil them down to three categories:

  • Eat
  • Sleep
  • Escape

When you’re poor, every day there is the need to find something to eat and also a safe place to sleep and something that is more comfortable than a cardboard box to rest your bones upon, and then, to have the intuition to escape creditors, family members, critics and anybody else who would try to “guilt” you into a lifestyle that mirrors their own.

Now right there, friends, is a full-time job.

If you do not have money, finding enough to eat, a place to sleep, and a way to escape the scrutiny of your adversaries will keep every child of God busy until morning’s light.

I learned the simplicity of finding change and turning it into a couple of dollars which would buy enough bologna and bread to make a meal—if I slipped out into the woods and picked myself some wild blackberries.

And I certainly knew how to circle a neighborhood and find a discarded couch which was heading for the dumpster and had nothing wrong with it except some dirt and recent rain that fell while it sat awaiting its execution.

That couch was fair game. It was rejected, left alone and on a public sidewalk. If I could jump out of my beat-up van, lift it in, and take it back to my location of rest, I could have a place to sit and sleep. There were times I broke out in tears over discovering a particular sofa that was so comfortable that it literally “couched” my aching muscles for many weeks.

I was amazed at what people will give away, throw away or discard because in their opinion, it got old too fast.

I was also astounded at how many doughnut places took their mistakes and day-old product and dumped them out every morning at 8:16 A. M.

And I was careful to swoop in at just the right moment, taking as little time as possible to procure a couch or a beat-up box of rejected doughnuts.

Poverty is an adventure in exhaustion which receives no applause for ingenuity.


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Cottonmouth

Cottonmouth: (n) a venomous snake of the swamps in southeastern U.S., that grows to about 4 feet

Camping is where two people possessing limited experience take five other people who have no experience, to convince those individuals that they, in their limited experience, are actually frontiersmen.funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

I didn’t know this when I was younger.

I got invited to go on a “woodsy trip” because some of my friends thought it would be nice to have me along so I could be funny and tell stories over the fire at night while they toasted marshmallows to a perfect golden brown.

What they did not realize is that I do not favor huge amounts of physical exertion and have been known to sweat when over-thinking. During the day, I found myself an annoying appendage on a process that needed no annoyance other than insisting that a bunch of know-nothings could go into the wilderness and pretend that their “inner cave” people would come to the surface and teach them.

One of the warnings from our two experts—who, we later found out, had simply read a book on the subject—well, one of their admonitions was to “watch out for poisonous snakes.” In this particular region, the most popular variety of the varmints was called a cottonmouth.

I, for one, was curious how the creature had gotten its name, and was told “not to worry much about it because most of the snakes in the area were black snakes, not cottonmouths.”

I paused. I said, “Do they look differently?”

“No,” replied one of the guides. “They’re both black.”

Figuring I had come up with the best possible follow-up question, I queried, “Since they’re both black, how do you know the difference between a black snake and a cottonmouth?”

He rolled his eyes at me. “Don’t be silly,” he chided. “The cottonmouth has a white mouth, which is obvious.”

Everybody else sitting around the circle accepted this explanation. It stirred some concern inside me. If I was going to be close enough to see the inside of a snake’s mouth, to determine whether it was just your average black snake or a cottonmouth, wouldn’t I already be in trouble?

Unless I had a reputation of being a dentist to the reptilian world, I don’t think they would be opening their mouths unless they were planning to bite me.

I was about to bring up this point to my friends when one of the guides—the leaders of our bodies and souls—patted me on the shoulder and said, “Come on. Just trust the Lord.”

As he walked away, I thought, didn’t God warn Adam and Eve about the serpent? 


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Cotton

Cotton: (n) a plant with soft, white, downy hairs

It’s not cotton’s fault.

Cotton is not to blame.

But honestly, I can’t hear the word “cotton” without thinking about slavery.

I know—I’m weird.

It doesn’t keep me from wearing a cotton t-shirt or cotton socks. But cotton was a crop that was so difficult to pick, and grew in such a hot climate, that a funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
bunch of white people who couldn’t withstand the process, decided to abandon their entire moral code and respect for humanity and bring in black folks from Africa, convincing themselves that these souls were little more than apes—so that the damn stuff could be gathered and turned into a profit.

The world wanted cotton and the South didn’t want to pick it. So rather than finding a better way to do it or creating a living wage for those unemployed white Southerners who might be willing to consider pursuing the occupation, it seemed logical in the minds of those from that era to enslave a race of people to promote a crop.

Black people picking cotton.

The activity was the origin the racist statement, “You must be out of your cotton-pickin’ mind.”

That would have been considered a double insult: first, that you were relegated to picking cotton, and second, that you were as hapless as they insisted Africans were.

Even in the South today, when driving along, seeing these strange fields full of the white blooms, it crosses my mind: who’s picking this stuff now?

And then, to my horror, I drive a little piece up the road and see black brothers and sisters wearing loose-fitting clothes and head scarves, still plucking the crop from the field. Even though they now receive a wage for doing so, the sight is almost too frightening to perceive.

Like it or not, certain things become tainted.

I’ll never be able to see an old movie that shows the Twin Towers of New York in the background without tearing up.

I’ll never be able to view a Confederate flag without remembering the arrogance and ignorance that punished a race of people and imprisoned them into forced labor.

And I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look at a cotton field without being reminded of the atrocity that was brought about in our country by white people picking a white crop to undergird their white privilege while subjugating black hands to do so.


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Cottage Industry

Cottage industry: (n) any small-scale, loosely organized industry.

Here’s the ideal:

Making cottage cheese in my cottage to establish a cottage industry.

I don’t know whether it would work, but it certainly has appeal. A great sales line, don’t you think?funny wisdom on words that begin with a C

“Where did you make that cottage cheese?”

“Well, darn tootin’! I made it right there in my cottage.”

“Well—that gives you quite a cottage industry.”

It would be so simple. Of course, there would have to be a large market for cottage cheese, and you would have to compete with the Big Barons of Cottage Cheese—whoever that would be.

But if you were actually able to sell enough cottage cheese from your cottage to have a cottage industry, you could go back to your cottage every night and do cottage things, knowing that all the bills for your cottage were paid, and settle into your cottage for a good night of sleep, while your tummy digested your meal of cottage cheese.

It’s a perfect story.

Maybe that’s why it doesn’t work.


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Cotillion

Cotillion: (n) a formal ball given especially for debutantes.

A cotillion used to be subtitled “a coming out ball.”

Now that phrase would evoke great laughter—because “coming out” means something completely different from it did when we were funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
referring to the first time a sixteen-year-old girl was dressing up like a woman and spraying perfume in her hair.

Somewhere lodged between the fallacy that “everything in the past was better” and the hard sell of “everything now is superior” lies some sort of compromise.

Maybe if we approached the passage of time similarly to the way we eat food at a smorgasbord, we might just arrive at a blending of practices which would be satisfying and beneficial to our well-being. For after all, at a buffet you grab a plate and walk the line, take a little bit of half-a-dozen or more items, go sit down and discover what is pleasing to the palate.

This is exactly what I try to do with my human life.

I have no desire to live in the past, filled with disease, pestilence and prejudice. Yet I’m not particularly satisfied with being overwhelmed in the present, with forms of idiocy which have merely donned contemporary costumes.

I do like a little bit of the cotillion to go along with my Facebook and Instagram.

I like the idea of the transitions in life being honored with celebration and a touch of reverence instead of the crude way of thinking that a young girl becomes a woman by losing her virginity.

How can we balance the human heart, spirit and brain? The heart wants to be moved, the spirit wants to be inspired and the brain desires learning.

So I guess my goal is to feel my way along, looking for those things that inspire me, and then try to make them my own.


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