GRATITUDE SHORT LIST

On the subject of gratitude, what about the karma challenged? A contributor sent me a newspaper clipping by Rebecca Dudley from the Brush News-Tribune, from Brush, Colorado. Ms Dudley recounts the tale of a fellow who had brought his motorcycle into his living room for the purpose of repairing it. He had a bowl of gasoline, some rags, and tools. After making the intended repairs, He climbed on his crotch rocket to start it up and make certain everything worked. When he cranked it up, however, the motorcycle was in gear and promptly carried the fellow though a pair of glass doors.

His wife called the paramedics, off the fellow went to the hospital, and was sewn back together with many stitches. Upon returning home, he went to bed and his wife bent to the task of cleaning up the living room. Among the other things she cleaned, she took the bowl of gasoline and dumped it in the toilet, which she failed to flush. Her husband, then, bandaged like the Mummy, went into the bathroom to take a dump. He dropped his pajama bottoms, sat down, then lifted a cheek and took the cigarette he was smoking and tossed it into the bowl, which promptly exploded sending the man through the bathroom door, his posterior aflame.

His wife again called 911 and the same paramedics as the previous time answered the call. They put the guy on a stretcher, and while they were carrying him out to the ambulance, the man's wife explained to the paramedics what had happened. Unfortunately, this got the paramedics laughing so hard, they dropped the man, breaking his collarbone.

Days like this I've had myself, including being dropped by the guys who were carrying the stretcher I was on, giving me the third concussion I had received over the previous 36 hours. When I awakened in the hospital with a level nine headache and half-blind with seeing multiple images, I did my Gratitude Short List. I said, "I'm still on this side of the dirt."

"While the sick man has life, there is hope." —Cicero