Trying to Stop being Clever

My daughter turns 5 tomorrow. When my wife was 5 she kicked her father in the head for spanking her and he left. I've been wondering ever since we got married and especially since we had the kid if I would make it as far as Wayne did. I mean, I didn't go into this family with the intention of breaking it up. Who really does that? On some level they think they will make it work, that it will be good and happy and fun. But I have to be realistic. With the rate of divorce in this country in my lifetime alone, including my parents, my mom’s parents, and I guess most of my family that I know, I had to realize that there was a chance that it wouldn't last. Emily and I had had our bouts. We had been as happy and as unhappy as a non-married couple where both people survive can be expected to be. So I guess in the back of my mind I have always kept the thought that, “if it gets really bad, I can get out.” And now, if it does get bad, I just lean back a lit...

A funny thing happened to me at the supermarket. I was checking out, when I noticed a dry erase board on the wall behind the manager’s station at the front of the store under the windows. The sign said “Daniel 5:15”. So I thought, “is that reference to a Bible verse, or is it saying that Daniel’s shift will start at 5:15?” So I got out my phone and Googled it. I found that the Bible verse at Daniel 5:15 is roughly this: “Now the wise men, the enchanters, have been brought in before me to read this writing and make known to me its interpretation, but they could not show the interpretation of the matter.”  Now that’s what I call irony. So I went back to that same market the next day. The dry erase board today said “Cora 11:45.” Pretty sure there’s no book of Cora in the Bible. Plus the girl bagging the groceries at my line was named Cora. So still not sure what the sign indicates, perhaps a break. In any case, it’s probably not any reference to a holy book. Not the inspirational “Jo...