Tag Archives: moral

Corvette

Corvette: (n) brand name for a type of sports car made by Chevrolet

I think the correct term for it is “urban legend,” although, since I grew up in a town of only fifteen hundred people, it may be a rural legend.

When I was a boy there was a man-made lake near our town which had several back roads along the banks, which were often impassable funny wisdom on words that begin with a C
because they were covered with water if the lake was particularly bloated by rains.

I was familiar with the roads because sometimes it was fun to go down them to park with your lady, or to scare your girlfriend because it was so spooky at night. (Everyone knows that teenage lasses who are frightened are much more susceptible to romance.)

On one of these roads, a gentleman took his 1969 bright-red Corvette Stingray, parked it, took out a shotgun and blew his head off.

It did no physical damage to the car whatsoever, so after he was removed and the remaining parts of him were cleaned out, his family tried to sell the car. The problem was, it was nearly a week before anyone found the body in the car, so the stench of the corpse had settled into the upholstery, and it was necessary to pull out all the seats, the dashboard, and start from scratch. They did this, figuring it would still be cost-effective to sell the automobile.

But even after all the fastidious effort, the smell of the dead man’s remains lingered—because a Corvette is made of fiberglass and is much more porous than metal. Therefore, it retained the stench.

Try as they would to deodorize, they were unable to get the odor out of that beautiful red Corvette.

It had to be junked.

I was present for this event, but I would understand if you wanted to question the authenticity or validity of the tale, and I do realize that at this point I should come up with a moral for the story or a clever closing for this essay, to make you yearn to come back for more.

But the best I can muster is, if you’re going to kill yourself, don’t do it in an expensive sports car, because no one will be able to “vette” your stink.


Donate Button

Subscribe to Jonathan’s Weekly Podcast

Good News and Better News

 

Ban

Ban: (v) to officially or legally prohibit.Dictionary B

You can’t take away from people what God gave them.

This is true even if you feel you are morally supported, spiritually justified, ethically infused or intellectually motivated.

We would have much happier lives if we would understand that our sphere of influence does not have authority outside the circle of our heart.

So you may ask, what has God given to people?

Free will.

I think the reason that many folks believe in destiny is because they can cast onto God their distaste for the world around them. In other words, if they don’t like people with blue hair or brown eyes, they can insist that God also has predestined, from the foundations of the world, severe punishment for these individuals.

But when you submit to free will, you understand that God considers it to be supreme above all commandments.

After all, even though God loves the world, He neither gets offended nor kills people off when they don’t love Him back.

So when we attempt to ban anything and forbid its continuation, we will generally fail because it removes free will from other human beings, which God insists they should have.

  • So how can we have a righteous world if we don’t preach righteousness?
  • How can we have morality if it’s not enforced?
  • And how can we keep our children safe from evil if it’s allowed to roam the Earth?

The answer is easy.

We can’t.

 

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

*******************

NEW BOOK RELEASE BY JONATHAN RICHARD CRING

WITHIN

A meeting place for folks who know they’re human

 $3.99 plus $2.00 S&H

$3.99 plus $2.00 Shipping & Handling

$3.99 plus $2.00 Shipping & Handling

Buy Now Button

 

Anosmia

dictionary with letter A

Anosmia: (n) the loss of the sense of smell, caused by injury, infection or the blockage of the nose.

There’s a name for it!

One of my greatest joys in doing this daily essay is discovering that there are words that have been set aside to describe much of the weirdness that I’ve experienced in my life.

I probably won’t remember the word in the moment that I need it, but it’s still nice to know that my predicament is common enough that somebody “worded” it.

Several years ago I had a sinus infection. I didn’t know it was a sinus infection, but all of the amateur doctors I’m acquainted with (who also double as friends and family) let me know that I did not have a common cold, but rather, common sinusitis.

I convinced myself that I got the condition from sleeping in a house where construction was going on and that sawdust had stuffed up my beezer. Of course, this is highly unlikely, but it sounded cool when relating my malady to others.

But one of the things I remember about the experience was that I stopped being able to smell anything. Food, bathroom aromas and even my own particular scent evaded my scrutiny.

At first I wasn’t bothered by this side effect, but then I began to wonder if I was stinking to other folks, and was unaware of it.

I did what every human being would do. I overcompensated:

  • Instead of splashing myself with cologne once, I did it three times.
  • A double application of deodorant.
  • And an extra minute or two in the shower, scrub-a-dub-dub.

It was at this point that I noticed that people were wincing as I walked by, so I decided I must be stinking horribly, so I doused myself even further.

Honestly, I’ve never had all my friends so glad to see me get over an ailment.

So I guess the moral of the story is: when you can’t smell yourself, it’s better to assume you’re okay. 

Donate Button

Thank you for enjoying Words from Dic(tionary) —  J.R. Practix

Aesop

Words from Dic(tionary)

dictionary with letter A

Aesop: (6th century BC) The moral animal fables associated with Aesop were probably collected from many sources and initially communicated orally.

Rabbits don’t race with turtles. Forcing a story where one does may be a vehicle for producing a moral, but it certainly does not make for a very good fable.

I never liked the story of the tortoise and the hare. After all, what respectable bunny would think it was funny to go after his shell-shocked neighbor? What do you have to prove? Come on, Aesop.

Let’s say that the rabbit wins (which is what would ACTUALLY happen). So he goes back to his den–or hole, or wherever rabbits hang out–pours himself a nice carrot juice, leans back in his easy chair and says, “Guess what I did today, buddies? I out-raced a turtle. Beat that little fella to a pulp! Wasn’t even close.”

You see? There’s just no motivation for it.

Likewise, the story viewed from the other side, as the tortoise returns to his brethren:

Q: So what’d you do today, Pete?

A: Uh … I challenged a rabbit to a race.

Q: You what? What are you? Crazy?

So you see, the rabbit would appear to be extraordinarily foolish, and the turtle would look like somebody flipped him on his back and he couldn’t right his wrong.

I think stories that have morals should also have some realism and plot–and the tortoise and the hare just would never have happened.

And by the way, the moral of the story–that “good things go to he who waits” and “slow and steady wins the race”–is pretty much crap, too. Most of the time, we have to find a way to do things fast AND efficient.

I know Aesop meant well, but you can’t write a fable trying to encourage those who are slower, instead of challenging them to speed up a little bit … and get a “hare” advantage.