Creative Endeavors

A lovely morning, I find myself sitting at Starbucks, sipping on my double-mocha-latte-pinch of Cinnamon-nutmeg-three marshmallow half-coffee/half-chocolate $4 caffeine loaded treat for the day.

Low and behold this lady walks up to me and says, “Aren’t you Don Smith, the always trying to win a Pulitzer Prize winning author of Creative Endeavors read by millions?” and I said, “Why yes, yes I am.”

Then she asks me, “When you say you are not making something up on your webpage, does that mean you’re really and truly not making any of that stuff up?” And I said, “Yes.” Meaning no, I am not making it up.  Now if I was indeed making things up, I would say something like.

If you take this post, copy it out, print it out on your printer at home, wad it up and throw it in the trashcan … It will scream!”

Now see, that was fabricated, I wasn’t being truthful with you on that at all.  When you see something or read something totally off the wall, outrageous, then you will know that I am making things up.

I mention all this to you today so that you will believe me when I say that I’m not making up today’s topic, which is “Focused Confusion.”  Yeah, that is a good one, “Focused Confusion.”  I like that.  So everything you read from here on out, is the absolute truth.  This is a totally TRUE story.

Trust me (heh-heh)

Raining today, not a fit day for dog nor beast, come to think of it, in some circles, a dog could be considered a beast.  Dogs really lead a nice life, think about it, you never see a dog wearing a wristwatch.  Now me, I am too lazy to be a dog.  There is no way in the world, if I was a dog, that I would chase cars down a street.  Nope, I would just sit on the curb and take down their tag numbers.

You hear about the guy that was sitting in the movie with his dog, and every time the villian came on the screen the dog would growl and show his teeth?  Finally this other guy just had to say something.  So he leans over and say to the guy, “You dog certainly seems to be getting into this movie, isn’t he?” and the other guy says, “Yeah, really surprising me, he didn’t like the book at all!”

Drum roll …. Take my wife ……. Please!

Most people on the net, as I understand it have cats.  Pet a cat, and you have a job for life.  So anyway, let’s get onto “Focused Confusion” the selected read by millions post for today …… Hellllllllllo Singapore!

So I am on my way to Tulsa, Oklahoma, a distance of some 125 miles and I stop in the north part of the town because I am receiving an incoming cell transmission.  Which is a nice way of saying someone has called me.  I do not drive and talk, do not believe in it and will not participate, so I pull over to the side of the road.  You know in America we have D.U.I. (Driving Under the Influence) and D.W.I (Driving While Intoxicated) and now D.W.Y. …… which is Driving While Yakking.

Which I absolutely do not believe in.

Pulling over to the side of the road, I shut the engine down and we begin to talk, this friend and I.  During this time, I notice that my glasses are somewhat dirty, so I pull out the old hankie and start to clean them.  For the most part, things are going swimmingly well, and no one has come along and rear-ended my illegally parked car.

Now that I have successfully transferred over to the new age, I am able to “multi-task” as my grandson calls it and I am talking on the phone, I am cleaning my progressive, no line bi-focals at the same time.  People in the sixties would have laid you six to five, that I would not have been able to do this.  But I am.  Unfortunately, here is where the downside part of the story comes in, and in my case, there is always a down side part of the story.

Trust me.

While I am talking on the phone, I accidentally pop one lens out of the right side of the glasses and do not notice it.  I finish the lens that I am working on, put the glasses back on, stop the conversation and get back on the road.  About twenty minutes later, I start to notice that “things are not looking just right” and I am wondering what is wrong with my eyes?  All the way to Tulsa, I am looking at all this traffic and all these signs, and folks, things are not copasetic in River City.

What the — ?

I arrive in Tulsa, and I locate my friend, we get in the car for some lunch and he says, “What is this, and shows me an item he has picked up off the floor mat on the passengers side of car.”  Anyone want to hazard a guess as to what this suspicious item might have been?

Yeppers!  It was the lens to the right side of my glasses.

Fortunately for me, they do not charge you when you cancel an appointment you make when you stop and park illegally on the side of turnpike outside Sand Springs, Oklahoma, and schedule an eye appointment with the optometrist for an eye exam.

Man … They are going to love me at the home, I just know it.  Tomorrow we will talk about my recent colon-endoscopy where they informed me that they found a size 4 woman’s shoe … don’t miss it.

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