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Show HIGH TIME: UKLps.."!rihi.cB. JLnftftlte. irag By FLORENCE BITTNER There are lots of little pleasures in life, but tucked in among the goodies are petty annoyances. Individually In-dividually they don't amount to much, but they are. cumulative, and they get you. In the end. HAVE YOU ever read a great mystery story and found the last chapter missing? miss-ing? Have you ever opened a can of soda pop and your hand in one motion? Have you ever spilled syrup and found it remains in sticky little globs for weeks? Have you ever sealed an envelope, mailed it and returned re-turned to your desk to find the check still lying there? Have you ever planned a vacation, packed, checked the house, called the office and found everything under control, backed out the driveway to have your youngest child say, "Gee, look at my tummy. I'm all over little red spots?" HAVE YOU ever tried to replace a watch band, being ever so careful to compress the tiny spring clip just so, only to have it bounce out of your fingers and leap across the table and land somewhere in an acre of shag carpet? Have you ever saved the last of the milk for your son's morning cereal only to watch him reading the funnies while he pours it carefully out on the table? HAVE YOU ever felt less than enthusiastic about eating a piece of birthday cake whose candles were sprayed out by a four-year-old? Have you ever leaped out of bed to find out what went bang in a sudden gust of wind and discovered dis-covered the patio umbrella lying amidst the ruins of your geraniums? Did you ever open a car door and leave the car with a piece of the handle still in your hand? Did you ever follow a gravel truck down the highway and have a rock bounce through your windshield? HAVE YOU ever heard the phone from the yard, ruined a sprinkler head with your toe. vaulted most of the way over a bicycle, burst through the 'door, cracked your shins on a chair in time to talk to someone about a burial plot? Have you ever watched the best movie of the month on television, arrived at the most critical bit of dialogue in time to have your daughter sweep into the room with the fascinating fas-cinating news about how-much how-much money she needs for . her glee club uniform,.. Pamela's getting a horse and can she go to the movies and spend the night at Sandy's? HAVE YOU ever opened a childproof medicine container by hurling it with great violence against a wall, or worse, handing it to a child and saying, "Here, open this?" Have you ever found the scissors where you left them? Have you ever scrounged around the kitchen for a snack and found only dried up baloney and soggy potato chips? Have you ever decided to blow the budget on two and a half gallons of ice cream in time to have the freezer go out? HAVE YOU ever salvaged a . spoon from the garbage disposal dis-posal and been condemned to eat from then on with a spoon which bites back, having grown teeth on its edges in its trip through the disposal? Have you ever done a back one-and-a-half on your carport car-port when the lawnmower pullrope snapped? Have you ever had the lawnmower start on the first yank? HAVE YOU ever installed one of those "floatless" toilet valves and had it work just fine as long as you stood with your arm in the tank holding it shut? Have you ever baked a cake for a special PTA cake sale, and dropped it, frosting down? Have you ever had your hair done for an evening out on the town and walked up the driveway toward the house in time to have a helpful help-ful son turn on the lawn sprinklers? HAVE YOU ever broken a fingernail, leaving a snag sticking up and had to sit through a meeting trying to ignore that snag? Have you ever washed and waxed the car and not had it rain? Have you ever worked for days making yourself a new dress, tried it on for the final fitting and decided you hate it? Just thought I'd ask. |