boblog

I sat at the kitchen table tonight watching, feeling really, the tears drop into my Lean Cuisine sesame stir fry with chicken.

I have no right to have that dinner. I have no right to have the table or the floor on which it sits or the room it inhabits or the furnace that keeps it and me warm. I am blessed.

There are so many millions, can you get your head around that number – millions? – millions of people in this United States of America that don’t have heat tonight. They don’t know where the next meal is coming from or if, even.

The best thing in their lives is the fact that their kids get to go to school tomorrow morning and there will be heat there to keep them warm and they don’t have to die today. And I sit there and listen to 60 Minutes and feel the  warmth well up in my tennis shoes and the tears salt my dinner and wonder why me?

I have no right to that dinner because what, exactly, have I done to deserve it? Why has God blessed me with so much and what does He want from me? Maybe that’s the answer. Maybe He doesn’t want anything other than acknowledgement that He is in fact in control. His thoughts are not my thoughts and there are, in fact, just some things I can’t and am not supposed to understand.

I admit it: I don’t understand. I am so incredibly blessed and I cannot in any sense of the word or the world explain it.

I used to think it was just Americans but I’ve just about decided it’s not us. I’m hearing more complaints from people who have gone off to some idyllic vacation spot only to be constantly harassed by the incessant drone of pounding man-made noise: usually music.

There’s the old joke about the quiet, secluded island motel owner that immediately runs to turn on the loud Musak when he sees the incoming patrons. One of them complains about the music being so loud and he says, “Well, yes, you’re Americans, right. Americans must have constant music playing, yes?”

No. It’s time to stop. Turn it off. Be quiet. As they say back home, “Shut the f up. Turn that sh**t off.”

We’re tired and tired of it. No one comes to heaven (e.g., Nassau, a lonely Greek island, or the Hill Country) to be constantly bombarded by the headache producing pounding of inane tunes that one one really cares about.

We came here to be QUIET! I really would prefer to hear the sound of the wind in the palms, the music of the waves breaking on the beach, the gulls crying out for morsels as they circle overhead, the kids squealing as they play in the sand.

Your island charm is not improved by the pounding hip hop, classic rock, lounge hit mix.

Turn it off. Let me relax in peace.

I guarantee you, if you do, I’ll probably come back in the future and the size of your tip will increase today.