Who'da Thunk?

by Jim Salisbury

One of my Mother's favorite phrases was: "Don’t wish evil upon another person because it just might come true." She would always follow this up with: "If you wished something bad to happen to someone and then it actually happened, you would feel awful about it for the rest of your life."

Somehow, this made sense to me. So, in order to avoid becoming guilt-ridden for life, I would always wish for things that could never, ever happen. For instance, when someone would cut me off in traffic, I would wish that a herd of angry elephants would trample all over them. Or, when somebody had 12 items in the express lane, I would wish that the Moon would fall from the sky and hit them on the head. Thus, I would never have to worry about feeling guilty.

This process seemed to be working fine until one day back in 1994. I was sitting in a restaurant with friends enjoying a few drinks. As our waiter approached, he tripped and spilled an entire plate of spaghetti all over me and my new white shirt. But, instead of becoming irate, I simply reverted back to my secret style of anger management, took a deep breath, and then wished that a retired Hall of Fame football player would jump out of the bushes that evening and cut his throat.

My wife says that I should have bought a lotto ticket that night.

© 2004 Jim Salisbury, All Rights Reserved.