THE BOG'S LESSONS OF LIFE: VOLUME 1

{BLOGGERS NOTE: THIS BLOG ACTUALLY STARTED BACK IN 2008 AND EACH ONE WAS WRITTEN WRITTEN OVER A COORS LIGHT OR A BOTTLE OF BOONE'S FARM)

Jimmy was always small. In elementary school, the boys would pick on him and call him "Shorty," "Runt" and "Jimmy." He was also shunned by the girls, who would snicker at his thick glasses and extra arm.

But Jimmy always carried hope that one day, others would view him as special as his parents viewed him. They would see beyond the physical oddities and witness a brilliant and subtle mind that was full of compassion, kindness and ninja tactics.

One day, a fireman came barging into Jimmy's classroom.

"The gymnasium is on fire. We need every extra hand we can get! Come on!"

Jimmy looked down at his extra arm. He knew what he had to do. He closed his notebook and rose from his desk. He waited for all the kids to scurry through the door before he stole the teacher's purse, bought liquor and three-fisted it behind the Dumpster as the sirens wailed.


LESSON: We all can't be heroes.


John huffed down the sterile hallway, his slippered feet gaining unsteady traction. His eyes nervously glanced down at the tray full of rattling test tubes. "I must get these to the safe room," he thought.

He heard gunfire behind him. The Libyans were advancing. He knew he couldn't let the tubes fall into the wrong hands.

Botulism. Ebola. Plague. The labels frightened him even more than the report of gunfire up ahead. If a tube broke, death would spread quickly through the metropolitan area, and then the Western Hemisphere.

As he rounded the corner, a pack of Camel Lights on the security guard's desk caught his eye. He balanced the tray on the desk and fiddled impatiently with the lighter.

Then, almost as if in slow motion, the tray fell and shattered into a smoldering, jagged heap. John slid his back down the wall and sat on the floor. He inhaled the Camel smoke deeply and checked some scores on his iPhone.


LESSON: Don't sweat the small stuff.


Madge was a middle-aged woman with an anger-management problem. She had driven an honest-but-simple husband away, and was now left alone in the small house, with plastic fruit on the table and a defunct mower in the shed.

She wondered where it had all gone: the dreams, the plans, the left foot. She dipped a pudgy stump in the bath water. With romance novel clutched in hand, Madge reclined in the water and began reading about the man with the long hair, kissing the maiden with a tender tongue.

Suddenly, a brilliant flash appeared around her, and Madge felt more alive than she ever had; electric in fact. Before it went dark, she saw the clown silhouetted in the doorway, and the toaster in the tub.

LESSON: Don't trust clowns.

Stay tuned, but until then here is a thought: You know the saying "A bird in hand is worth two in the bush." How much is it worth when you "beat around the bush?"