[Beliefnet, February 2, 2001]
At dawn on the last day of the year, my husband and I were walking along a rural highway in South Carolina, following a trail of broken things. I had left my pocketbook on top of the car at a gas station late the previous night, something we didn’t realize till we got to my mother-in-law’s house about 45 minutes later.
It was too dark to search then, but all night I fretted. Had it fallen off right in the gas station lot, and was someone even now using my Visa card to order a vintage Corvette? Was some fan using the cell phone to leave long messages on Ricky Martin’s answering machine? How would I ever replace all those little plastic cards, when I couldn’t even remember what half of them were for? I pictured myself spending all afternoon at the DMV, glumly waiting to pose for a new license.
[Unpublished, June 2000]
MEMO
To: DavidFrom: Mom & Dad, Inc.Re: Offspring
Congratulations! Mom & Dad, Inc., are pleased to hear that you and Marcella have had a baby. Good work. Though a new baby is a demanding project (for further reference, see top end, bottom end, intermediate regions, etc.) we anticipate that this investment of time and effort will be as rewarding to you as similar endeavors have been to us (see family scrapbooks).
While the project has been labor-intensive so far, with Marcella even pulling a couple of all-nighters there at the end,
[Beliefnet, May 30, 2000]
If you’re in the market for a great big Bucket o’ Compassion, the best place to look would be the May 2000 Neiman-Marcus catalogue. It sports a sincere moss-green cover embossed with a cream-colored card, which proclaims “Compassion: A Tribute to Loving Hearts and Minds.” The font is so noble you want to cry.
[Christianity Today, May 22, 2000]
So one day this guy hears his doorbell ring and he goes to answer the door. He doesn't see anybody there, but looking down he sees a snail creeping along the welcome mat. He picks it up and tosses it far across the lawn.
[Beliefnet, February 10, 2000]News is that that dreamboat, Ned Flanders, is going to be a-v-a-i-l-a-b-l-e. Why are hearts fluttering and knees weak? Take another look at our man Ned: he’s got more than his share of gal appeal. He’s decked out in an impeccable suit of virtues.
I’m on the level here. OK, get past the adenoidal voice. Get past the round goggle-glasses. Get past the annoying chirpiness. Wait, go back to the annoying chirpiness.
[Religion News Service, May 7, 1995]
I can't get the bumper‑sticker out of my mind; it's stuck there like a wad of gum under a theater seat. “World Peace,” read the message on the back of the Dodge, in faux‑childish crayon scrawl. It had a smiley‑face in the middle. No doubt the woman toting this sticker likes world peace, and wanted to suggest it as an option the rest of us had not yet considered.
[Religion News Service, November 26, 1996]
Has this happened to you? You’re watching some talk’n’politics TV show, a few people sitting around a table with a photo backdrop of the U.S. Capitol, and one of them is a total idiot.
You’re thinking, “I can’t believe what the one next to the potted plant is saying,” and “Did you hear that? How’d she/he get on this show?” and “I could do better than that — in fact, my labrador retriever could do better than that!”
Well, that would be me.
[World, September, 14]
There are many ways to act out pro-life convictions, and a surprising number of people do so by singing. A recent survey of the field yielded over 40 titles of pro-life songs, and the list is certainly incomplete.
There are two album-length collections of pro-life music, plus many singles and amateur songs. The first album, “Sing Out for Life,”
[Books & Culture, March, 1998]
Stacks of poetry books are resting on my desk, slim books with shiny covers, like hard little pills of intensity and voluptous emotion. They are the paper equivalent of social x-rays; they exude the philosophy, “You can never be too thin or too rich.” No wonder I'm intimidated.
My husband and I agreed to armwrassle a hearty stack o' poetry in preparation for National Poetry Month, and I think we were selected primarily for our ignorance. In my case, it's an ignorance standing in heroic resistance to years of experience. I started out writing poetry, and at the age of 13 won an award for one about a deserted town, I think because of the dead flies on a windowsill. I also got to say “thee” and “nought” and other hoity words you can only use in poems. For ten years I had a ball being a poet. I read and wrote a great deal of the stuff, then gave it up for changing diapers.
[Religion News Service, January 23, 1996]
It’s not every day you get to see a photo of a woman folding a man up and pushing him into a suitcase. But there she is: standing outside a compact car, shoving an amiable-looking fellow in a rugby shirt into a carrying case.
Make that a “#4858944 Zippered Nylon Carrying Tote.” Yes, this is Safe-T-Man, the inflatable bodyguard, “a life-size, simulated male that appears to be 180 lbs. and 6 ft. tall.”
