I'm pretty sure that the meaner you are, the longer you will live.

I took my Mom to the doctor this morning.  While I was sitting, waiting for her to come out of his office miraculously healed of her pain, I saw a spry old woman walk across the room and take a seat.  I kept looking at her because she looked so familiar to me. I also got this nagging feeling that when I figured out where I knew her from I was going to remember that I didn't like her much.  But alas, I just couldn't remember. As fate would have it, Mom and I came across her path on our way out the door.  I couldn't help myself and tapped her on her arm and told her that I thought she was very familiar but I couldn't place how I knew her.  She told me her name and then it hit me.  She was the front office clerk at the school I taught at my first few years as a teacher.  Two minutes into the conversation I realized why I was having that ominous feeling that she wasn't pleasant. The reason was because...she wasn't pleasant.  It all came flooding back to me by the fourth minute when she had already talked a blue streak about the #@^& principal that was there back in 1989 and how even the teachers called him a #@^& behind his back. All these things were said directly in the presence of the ears of my mother who is, I believe, allergic to foul language. I walked faster hoping that I could get away at a pace she couldn't keep up with, but then I remembered the reason we were at the orthopedist's office and that mama couldn't keep up either. Needless to say it was a long, long walk to the car. When we finally find ourselves in relative safety behind the doors of the jeep, I asked mama to stop me the next time I thought I wanted to open such a can of worms again.

But back to my original sentence.  This woman was as old as dirt in 1989.  I mean seriously old. According to my math, which may or may not be faulty, she must be 120 by now...and is obviously still just as mean as a snake.  I think I need to rethink this life of kindness and goodness and love (shut up) so I too may live to be 120.

Beej