Curses!

I'm living with a curse.

No, it's not like the curses you see in horror movies, where the victims get strangled in the night by walking corpses, or die in ghastly accidents, or waste away to nothing a la Stephen King. My curse manifests itself in strange and insidious ways:

- If I get into the shortest line at a supermarket, it stops moving...and if I change to another line, that one will stop moving, too.

- If the radio traffic reports say the highway where I'm going is wide open and moving at speed, it will have ground to a standstill before I get there...and the gas tank will contain only thin fumes.

- If I have to fly anywhere, the length of the flight is inversely proportional to the probability of getting a narrow middle seat between two grossly overweight, sweaty, and obnoxious people...and we'll end up sitting on the tarmac for at least an hour waiting to take off...AND we'll circle in a holding pattern at our destination, ensuring that I miss my connecting flight.

- And so on.

I'm firmly convinced that when my remote ancestors lived in Eastern Europe many hundreds of years ago, one of them aggravated an old gypsy who waggled her crooked fingers and muttered words of power that have rumbled down through the centuries to bedevil me today. How else can I explain all the annoying things that happen to me on a regular basis?

But it isn't just my problem. There seem to be a lot of curses making life miserable in the world for people other than myself.

- The curse of utter bullheadedness and stupidity that keeps people in the Middle East from working together to solve their problems and build a better life.

- The curse of religious absolutism that leads to scientific ignorance and cultural stagnation.

- The curse of lack of respect and tolerance for each other.

- And so on.

I suppose that, on the whole, my curse isn't so bad after all.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo