All Saints' Day
NOVEMBER 2023'S HOLIDAYS AND EVENTS
And we were in our thirties. Well into the Age of Boredom, when nothing is new. Now, I’m not being self-pitying; it’s simply true. Newness, or whatever you want to call it, becomes a very scarce commodity after thirty. I think that’s unfair. If I were in charge of the human life span, I’d make sure to budget newness much more selectively, to ration it out. As it is now, it’s almost used up in the first three years of life. By then you’ve seen for the first time, tasted for the first time, held something for the first time. Learned to walk, talk, go to the bathroom. What have you got to look forward to that can compare with that? Sure, there’s school. Making friends. Falling in love. Learning to drive. Sex. Learning to trade. That has to carry you for the next twenty-five years. But after that? What’s the new excitement? Mastering your home computer? Figuring out how to work CompuServe? “Now, if it were up to me, I’d parcel out. So that, say, at thirty-five we just learned how to go on the potty. Imagine the feeling of accomplishment! They’d have office parties. "Did you hear? The vice president in charge of overseas development just went a whole week without his diaper. We’re buying him a gift." It’d be beautiful.
Not converted or exchanged.
A famous professor of surgery died and went to heaven. At the pearly gate he was asked by the gatekeeper: 'Have you ever committed a sin you truly regret?' 'Yes,' the professor ansvered. 'When I was a young candidate at the hospital of Saint Lucas, we played soccer against at team from the Community Hospital, and I scored a goal, which was off-side. But the referee did not se it so, and the goal won us the match. I regret that now.' 'Well,' said the gatekeeper. 'That is a very minor sin. You may enter.' 'Thank you very much, Saint Peter,' the professor ansvered. 'Im am not Saint Peter,' said the gatekeeper. 'He is having his lunchbreak. I am Saint Lucas.'