Random Thoughts… When one door closes, and another door opens, you are probably in prison.

To me, “drink responsibly” means don’t spill it.

Age 60 might be the new 40, but 8:00pm is the new midnight.

It’s the start of a brand new day, and I’m off like a herd of turtles.

The older I get, the earlier it gets late.

When I say “The other day,” I could be referring to any time between yesterday and 15 years ago.

I remember being able to get up without making sound effects.

I had my patience tested. I’m negative.

Remember, if you lose a sock in the dryer, it comes back as a Tupperware lid that doesn’t fit any of your containers.

If you’re sitting in public and a stranger takes the seat next to you, just stare straight ahead and say, “Did you bring the money?”

When you ask me what I’m doing today, and I say “nothing,” it does not mean I am free to help you, it just means I am doing nothing.

I finally got eight hours of sleep. Three hours Monday, three hours Tuesday, and two hours Wednesday.

I run like the winded. I hate when a couple argues in public, and I missed the beginning and don’t know whose side I’m on.

When someone asks what I did over the weekend, I squint and ask, “Why, what did you hear?”

I don’t mean to interrupt people, I just randomly remember things and get really excited.

When I ask for directions, please don’t use words like “East.”

Don’t bother walking a mile in my shoes. That would be boring. Spend 30 seconds in my head, and that’ll freak you out.

Sometimes, someone unexpected comes into your life out of nowhere, makes your heart race, and changes you forever. We call those people cops.

My luck is like a bald guy that just won a comb.

—CC—

Like many of my friends, I have diabetes. My long-time friend and doctor, Tom Osborn (now retired) has encouraged me for years to change some of my eating habits. However, I have told him on several occasions that when I die if he finds sugar and grease in my system, he will know I went happily.

I find myself in complete agreement with Phillip Galley, who wrote the following: This past summer it was announced that artificial sweeteners damage DNA, harming the human body. I read this while drinking diet cola and was alarmed enough to stop drinking for a few minutes before deciding that even if artificial sweeteners kill me, it will be worth it. It leads to an old question: Would you rather have a briefer pleasant life, or a longer unpleasant life?

Let me tell you something, kiddo, the better you live, the worse you die. Those old-timers you see in the nursing homes, deep into their 90’s, slouched in their chairs, watching General Hospital, are the folks who took care of themselves, while the folks who drank gallons of diet cola every day, keeled over in their 70’s and 80’s fat and happy.

I don’t think I’m saying anything that could get me sued by the makers of the diet soda. Everyone knows soda pop, diet or not, is bad for us. They’re like cigarettes, only sweeter, and don’t make our clothes stink. When I see a smoker, I think, “What an idiot,” but when I see someone drinking soda, I wonder if they’ll give me a sip.

On any given day, I do three or four things that would kill a lesser man. I sit for hours at a time forgetting to stand up and walk every thirty minutes, which means I’ll likely have sitting disease, the newest most fashionable ailment one can have. Symptoms include feeling sleeping, drained and unfocused. I can’t remember not being sleepy drained and unfocused, which means I’ve probably had sitting disease before it was a disease.

I’m not always good at wearing my seatbelt, driving a mile or two before the beeper starts beeping, generally as I’m passing the Vornholt’s house, and I finally put it on. I eat lunch twice a week with Jerry Vornholt. We eat at Frank’s place in Danville most Tuesdays and Fridays. I eat lasagna, which I shouldn’t since I have diabetes. (See above maxim about the better you live, the worse you die). If diet soda, sitting on my butt, and driving without a seatbelt don’t kill me, eating lasagna will. On the other hand, I’ve been drinking diet cola and eating lasagna for decades, which makes me think that even as diet cola is damaging my DNA, the three pounds of lasagna I eat each week is repairing it. All of my life, I’ve been lucky that way, one bad habit offsetting another.

For close to 20 years, I ended each day with a brisk two-mile walk. Then I read a story about a man who, while out for a stroll, was stricken with vertigo, stumbled off the sidewalk, and then fell into the street, where he was hit by a truck and squashed. I know a sign from God when I see it and stopped walking immediately. When you think about it, it’s hard to believe I exercised twenty years with no ill effects. How foolish I was to tempt fate for so long.

When I was a kid the circus came to our town, pitching their tents at the county fairgrounds next to the jail. A lady, the same one who’d sold me cotton candy the day before, gazed into a crystal ball and predicted I would live to a ripe old age in perfect health right up to the end, before dying suddenly and painlessly. Perhaps this is why I’ve played it fast and loose with my health, knowing no matter what I did, my long life was written in the stars.