Today's episode proves one thing. If you figure that out, please let me know, as soon as possible.

It's Thursday, September 28, 2017, and I just remembered that I forgot to remember to remember to tell everyone that my wife left me again. I know. Too much of this could become habit forming. She and her sister had to make a trip to check on their last remaining sibling, their older brother, Cleon. He's not been doing well lately and we would appreciate prayers on his behalf. Saying that Cleon is ailing any at all is difficult for us to take in. He has always been the go-to rock within my wife's family. He's been that for most of his life. Yet, time does make a difference. For him, and for us all. I am living proof of that. And, unless you missed something, my guess is that you are too. She left early Tuesday morning. Tuesday evening I had a house full of grandkids and some Church folks came to visit. We stood at the door and visited for about 20 minutes. I hated to treat them like the Morman missionaries that come by occasionally, but, I was actually trying to get ready to watch this season's first episode of NCIS. (At least the mosquitoes were not eating us up.) Today, we have a roofing contractor who was supposed to be at our house yesterday, coming to repair our storm damaged roof, including replacing four damaged rafters. (It's always something.) I am so thankful that our Jimmy is there to coordinate that work. Last night, I hurried home, got changed, and attended our Wednesday evening Church service. This evening we hope to have as many as 25 in our home for our weekly prayer and Bible study. The wife hopes to be home during the day on Friday. Friday evening, we have the viewing gathering at the funeral home for a dear sweet lady we've known for many years. On Saturday, I will be participating in her service. See? If my grandmother was right in saying that staying busy will keep me out of trouble, well, I should be trouble free. That reminds me of another of her sayings, don't count your chickens before they hatch.

Good Card. Bad Card.

Many of you no doubt have heard of the good cop, bad cop technique used in a number of situations, typically, to get information or to help foster change. We actually used that technique some back in the day when I was a fairly high up mucky-muck at the big company. I have a new twist on that technique. I will call it my good card, bad card experience. A few months ago I ordered up a new Santa Claus business card to be used to pass out to folks we come in contact with. My initial order was for 250 cards. They came out perfect. Lots of people have been made happy in receiving one of those cards. I am nearly out of them so I reordered another 250. They came in. They were dark and the color was off. I got on the customer service chat line and a lady said they had found the problem and would re-run the cards and express ship them to me. I now had 250 plastic souvenir cards on hand that were bad. The next ones came in and they looked exactly the same as the bad ones I had received the week before. This next time I was on the chat line for about 45 minutes. They got the designers, the coordinators, the schedulers, and I think they even got a partridge in a pear tree to look at the problem. I now have 500 bad cards. She asked me to make a photo of the good one and the bad one side by side and send the image to her. Who do they think I am? Bill Gates. I finally figured out how to do it and sent it to her. They have discovered once again what the problem was and are express shipping another 250 cards. Okay. I may be a simpleton, but, I asked the lady why they didn't go back to the original proof and make them with it. She told me not to worry because they had it all figured out. I'm supposed to get them tomorrow. We will see. They are not cheap, but, my guess is, they will not be making much off of this particular order. See what I have to put up with?

The lady on the chat line or she said she was a lady, and she had a lady's name, Mitsue, or it sounds like a lady's name. Who knows for sure? I didn't hear her voice and I didn't see her. I am on the computer throughout my day. I know a little about how to do these types of things. It reminds me of mom and dad trying to get to the bottom of a problem with their bank card or medical bill. They used their phone and often spent all day being sent from one place to another. The good news was their tenaciousness. Dad took notes and stayed with it until he got it solved. All day. It makes one wonder how many older folks get taken to the cleaners because of the process they have to go through to try and get things straightened out. How many just give up? Just think how it will be when we all will be mostly talking to robots. I wonder if we can use those quotes from the old Mork and Mindy TV series where Mork would say, "Nanu-Nanu! or Shazbot!"? Just thinking out loud here. Maybe it would be better kept to myself? Good point, but, it's too late now, therefore, I do hope you will have a great rest of the day and may God bless us all. Amen. Over and out. For today. .....More later.