Tag Archives: spooked

Cell phone

Cell phone: (n) short for cellular phone.

Heaven is reserved for those who are not spooked into proclaiming the party line.

It is a good thing to be positive. It is a bad thing to lie. If we could get that straight, we might be able to make progress.

Case in point: there is nothing more handy than a cell phone. If you need to call someone, you don’t need to pull your car over, find a phone booth and hope you have enough change. (Matter of fact, nearly 40% of the population might not even know what a phone booth is.) You also don’t have to wait for people to call you back because they’re not home.

But to ever present the idea that cell phones are preferable in quality and durability to the original home phone is ridiculous.

They actually remind me of the walkie talkies I was given at Christmas when I was twelve. When I was in range, the antenna was pointed just right and the weather was good, my walkie talkies were amazing. Any variance to these conditions created everything from crackling to no service.

Cell phones make it hard to hear, difficult to speak on and unpredictable. Giving them cute names and coming out with the next derivation of the previous inadequate model does not alleviate the problem.

So is it possible to be grateful for the object provided, yet practical on its actual application?

If you’re able to do that, cell phones are magnificent.

If not, you keep hoping that the next number they create will suddenly be reliable.

 

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Botany

Botany: (n) the scientific study of plants

“Old Lady Martinson.”Dictionary B

That’s what we called her because we were young, cruel and indifferent to the feelings of anyone who wouldn’t giggle at our silly jokes.

I knew her because she occasionally hired young boys to do chores, offering a quarter for what we deemed was worth a dollar.

She had lots of cats. You didn’t need to see the cats to know this. It just required you being “nosy.”

The smell was horrible.

She was also rather odd (which, as I look back at it, I am not so sure is true, considering that when you’re in your early teens, “odd” is anything that doesn’t fit into your two-square-inch box of understanding).

But I do have one solid memory–she loved to lecture about botany.

She told me she used to teach it in college. To prove her point, she constantly talked to the plant life in her large, unkempt, stale-smelling house.

One day she took me on a tour of her various vines, plants and ferns. As she pointed out each one, she offered a greeting, uttered a name and mustered a bit of encouragement.

She spoke to them.

I was spooked–I thought she was going to have a spasm or attack me with a butcher knife like I had seen in one old movie.

She didn’t.

But it was when she introduced me to her African violets and began to sing to them in mumbo-jumbo that I realized it was time to go.

I think plants are wonderful.

I think we should study them.

I think they are essential to life on Planet Earth.

But I also think we should not “chat them up.”

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Blanket

Blanket: (n) a large piece of material used as a covering for warmth.

Dictionary B

Having met my share of homeless brothers and sisters, I became very curious. What was it like to be homeless?

So I made a decision to don the uniform of the street and attempt to walk in the shoes of those without gainful employment, hearth and home.

I decided I would do it for a week, but must tell you that I abandoned it after twenty-four hours.

The daytime found me in a situation in which I constantly needed to be on the move so as not to annoy the “civilized” people who passed by. I got hungry very quickly and didn’t have any money, so had to figure out where to go for a free luncheon, or beg off of my neighbors.

It was humiliating.

But the most difficult part was when nighttime fell, and my mission was to locate a place to sleep that was both comfortable and safe.

I discovered that such a utopia does not exist for the street person.

I hid behind a huge bush and laid down several cardboard boxes I had broken up to use as my mattress. Several problems leaped to the forefront:

1. Every sound spooked me.

2. Sleeping on the ground means sharing the turf with things that creep and crawl.

3. I was uncomfortable not having my head elevated (pillow).

4. But the most annoying part was the lack of a blanket.

I was so accustomed to being covered, protected, swaddled by that piece of cloth that gave warmth and the sense of cocooning.

It made me bitchy, frustrated, cold, and caused me to wake up the next morning antagonistic toward the world around me–in a season when I was most vulnerable.

A blanket is a sense of well-being.

When you remove it, it takes away a gentle reassurance that all is well … and you are coddled.

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Jonathan’s Latest Book Release!

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