“Get this off my chest.”

    One great thing about having a newspaper column is the fact that you have an opportunity to get things off your mind… off your chest. Wherever it is you keep things.

    Apparently, Kay has listened to everything that’s on my mind and chest for way too long. She no longer cares to listen. Last week, I saw this piece in the newspaper that explained how we should wash our hands in warm soapy water for 26 seconds 
before we start cooking something. That’s the third most ridiculous thing I found in that morning’s edition.

    We shouldn’t wash raw chicken before cooking, but we should wash our hands for 26 seconds before handling it.  I read the paragraph to Kay and then told her to stand by the sink and run water over her hands for 26 seconds. She wouldn’t do it. I then asked her to just stay seated and rub her hands together for 26 seconds. She didn’t even look up. Can you believe that? 

    So, it’s up to me to get someone else to do the 26-second hand rub. Go ahead, rub your hands together for 26 seconds and tell me it’s not an excessively long time to wash your hands.

    If every person in this country were to wash his or her hands for 26 seconds before cooking every meal, there’d be no water left for washing dishes. After washing my hands for 26 seconds in warm soapy water, I could remove your adenoids without wearing gloves. And, I don’t even know what your adenoids look like.

    The young lady at my sleep doctor place told me that the way to clean my CPAP mask is to run hot water over it for three minutes. Three minutes is right at 180 seconds. That’s 180 seconds of hot water going down my drain to clean my nose-over mask. I had been cleaning the thing with one of those baby wipes. Stupid was I.

The second most ridiculous thing I read that morning was – “GASOLINE PRICES TUMBLE FOUR CENTS.” There is absolutely no object in this country the cost of which can recede by four cents and be called a price TUMBLE. At the time of the article, gasoline locally went from $3.12 to $3.08. That’s a saving of 60 cents on a $50 fill-up. That’s not a TUMBLE. That’s an ebbing before a price surge caused by an Iranian border guard sneezing while on duty.” 

Kay’s response to my comment was “Chill, darling.” That knocked any notion I had of sharing my next newspaper tidbit with her. It may have been a letter to the editor that I read just to get the blood flowing to the unexercised parts of my brain. Somewhere in the piece I read, “The American people are tired of seeing the government grow well beyond the intent of our Founding Fathers.”

My thought was, we’d better hope government growth grows well beyond the intent of our Founding Fathers. If we try to carry on today in the manner of which our “Founding Fathers” intended, we’d collect revenue in only two ways. Tariffs (taxes on imports) and a tax on whiskey. That was IT back then. And, that was apparently enough, ‘cause the government didn’t do much of anything.

We had a Secretary of War, but no standing army. In fact, one of this country’s first military encounters came about as a result of a rebellion over the tax on whiskey. Americans rebelling over paying taxes? “Stop the presses!”

To put the rebellion down, President George Washington got on a horse and led a group of militiamen into Pennsylvania. George did that, because our Founding Fathers did not want a standing army. Instead, they were able to get the Second Amendment ratified to make sure the militia would be armed. The Second is the only amendment that actually spells out our Founding Fathers “intent.” – “A well regulated militia being necessary…”

Speaking of which, our Founding Fathers, understandably, didn’t see a “current” need for public libraries, parks, schools, highways, hospitals, anti-pollution laws, food and drug inspectors, national forests, air traffic controllers, broadcasting regulators, a spy network, national police force and several thousand other things.

Fortunately, they wrote a preamble that vaguely covered everything. Stuff like “… establish Justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity…” I’m not qualified to speak for “The American People,” but these sound like good things to me.

Some politicians and “news” spokespersons pretend to know how the “American People” feel concerning the proper ways to take care of our tranquility, defense, liberty and general welfare. Who are these “American people” that others are speaking for? The American people want to know. I’m not sure Kay does, but ALL the rest. 

End

Mark@rooftopwriter.com  &  www.rooftopwriter.com