Child Development -- by Billy Collins

Child Development
------------
Billy Collins (1941-)






As sure as prehistoric fish grew legs
and sauntered off the beaches into forests
working up some irregular verbs for their
first conversation, so three-year-old children
enter the phase of name-calling.

Every day a new one arrives and is added
to the repertoire. You Dumb Goopyhead,
You Big Sewerface, You Poop-on-the-Floor
(a kind of Navaho ring to that one)
they yell from knee level, their little mugs
flushed with challenge.
Nothing Samuel Johnson would bother tossing out
in a pub, but then the toddlers are not trying
to devastate some fatuous Enlightenment hack.

They are just tormenting their fellow squirts
or going after the attention of the giants
way up there with their cocktails and bad breath
talking baritone nonsense to other giants,
waiting to call them names after thanking
them for the lovely party and hearing the door close.

The mature save their hothead invective
for things: an errant hammer, tire chains,
or receding trains missed by seconds,
though they know in their adult hearts,
even as they threaten to banish Timmy to bed
for his appalling behavior,
that their bosses are Big Fatty Stupids,
their wives are Dopey Dopeheads
and that they themselves are Mr. Sillypants.

What happens [during] sleep - by Julie Redstone

What Happens While We Sleep: A Spiritual Perspective
---------------------
By Julie Redstone*

The human body has never truly been separated from the higher realms of light, despite one's waking experience. At night, this body rejoins its higher counterparts that are the non-physical energy bodies, and a more seamless union of different aspects of one's being takes place than can normally occur during daytime functioning.

The body is a miracle of organization and intelligence in which life is continually renewed and energy continually replenished so that the total organism can continue to live. Sleeping involves part of this renewal, and is a process through which the higher vibrations of light are permitted greater access to the physical body because the emotional and mental components of personality that are often limiting factors in the awake state are no longer present while one sleeps. Although dreaming produces mental and emotional content and therefore creates emotional states, the content of these is part of the sleep state itself and not a barrier to the energies that would restore, heal, and rejuvenate.

The quality of sleeping has a great deal to do with the amount of restoration that can take place. Deep sleep produces not only different brainwave patterns, but also permits a greater influx of light energy into the cells and tissues so that toxins can be removed and greater energy can be infused on a cellular level. This does not happen in any kind of conscious way. It happens because of the nature of the human body which has never truly been separated from the higher realms of light, despite one's waking experience. At night, this body rejoins its higher counterparts that are the non-physical energy bodies, and a more seamless union of different aspects of one's being takes place than can normally occur during daytime functioning.

The infusion of light is not the only thing that can occur during sleep, however. It is also possible for a soul to decide to continue their experiences with other realms while they sleep or to receive teachings from Beings with whom they have had an ongoing soul relationship. Such nighttime experiences are not unusual even if not recalled, and many people benefit during the daytime from learning acquired at night which is unknown to them, but which occurs to their conscious mind as insight or inspiration later on. Much of this insight has taken place during the sleep state, when access to one's own higher intelligence as well as to the help and teachings of others, can infuse the mind and the understanding and be held there till such time as the conscious mind can retrieve the information or inspiration.

For those who have sleeping difficulties, there is very often a preceding difficulty that has occurred in relation to connecting with the spiritual realms. Often, something has occurred during previous lifetimes which has created a greater separation between one's embodied self and the higher self and higher energy bodies that exist on other planes. Because of this preceding separation, during the night when one wants to be asleep, it is often difficult to do so because the seamless transmission of energy from one level of being to another cannot smoothly take place. Where this is the case, there may be longstanding problems with sleep and much wonderment about what the cause might be. Often, the cause is not physical but spiritual and energetic, that is, it is related to the perceived separation of physical life from spiritual life and the manifestation of that sense of separation through sleeplessness.

Much healing is possible at night, including healing of sleep disturbances as well. If there is a possibility for one in need of healing to relax, and instead of trying to sleep, rather to try to enter an intermediate 'twilight' zone of being partly asleep and partly awake, it is possible to rest in this state and to gain much of the nourishment from the upper realms that one would normally gain during deeper sleep. Healing of other kinds is also possible, for the relationship with the spiritual realms continues whether one perceives it to be so or not, indeed, whether one seeks it or not, and helpers of all kinds are available when called upon to help address problems, both emotional and physical, that may be troubling during the day.

The capacity to enter a deeper state of sleep is one that needs to be appreciated as part of the extraordinary complexity and beauty of the way the human body has been fashioned, for there is a self-maintaining function built into the body itself which renews itself, heals itself, and restores a sufficient amount of energy after it has been depleted so that the body can remain in a viable state for experiencing life within the physical realm for many years. As more light becomes present on earth and infuses the cellular structure of people's bodies, this capacity for renewal and sustenance will become much more available, and many of the ailments that are currently produced by insufficient energy or insufficient life-force will disappear in the presence of greater light.
________________________________

* Julie Redstone - is a writer, teacher, and founder of Light Omega, a spiritual center for healing and transformation in Western Massachusetts, and One World Meditations, a global effort to bring light and healing to the earth and to strengthen the planetary network of light.

Stop Waiting for Washington - by Jim Sollisch

Stop Waiting for Washington
------------------------
By Jim Sollisch (in Cleveland)
Christian Science Monitor - November 4, 2011
[If Americans hope Washington will create jobs or cut the deficit, they're in for a long wait. The onus lies on citizens. We need to change what it means to participate. We should treat politics like social media. Become our own politicians, just like we're our own digital-content producers.]

There’s an extremely good chance that you, dear reader, are fed up with Washington. To be precise, that chance is about 91 percent. According to a CBS News Poll conducted last week, only 9 percent of Americans say they approve of the job Congress is doing. That’s the lowest approval number since they began asking the question more than 30 years ago.
 
And yet we keep waiting for Congress to come up with solutions to our problems. Right now, we’re waiting for them to do something to spur job growth. We’re waiting for a Super Committee to find at least $1.2 trillion in budget cuts. Many are waiting for the political Messiah to appear in the form of a Republican candidate.
 
We might as well be waiting for Godot.

To be fair, not everyone is merely waiting. Some are occupying public squares and parks. Or having tea parties. A large number of us are still voting. We’re trying to participate, but the problem is we’re doing all the same things we’ve always done and expecting different results.
 
To actually do things differently, we should change what it means to participate. We should treat politics like we treat media. We should make it social.
 
As Clay Shirky points out in his excellent book, “Cognitive Surplus,” media have been turned upside down by this phenomenon. Not long ago, media were completely top down: a select few decided what the many would see, read, hear. Now everyone is a potential media producer. You can shoot a video and broadcast it on YouTube. Can’t get a job as a columnist? Start a blog and publish columns as often as you like. The means of production have shifted. We are all photojournalists, filmmakers, writers, publishers.
 
But the Internet has done more than democratize media. It’s also made it social and collaborative in ways that were never possible before. Imagine that 20 years ago someone told you there would be an encyclopedia that was updated minute by minute by hordes of volunteer editors, and it would be as accurate as Encyclopedia Britannica, only much bigger. Even if you could grasp the idea technologically, you’d still have scoffed at the notion that so many people would collaborate without a monetary motive.
 
Apparently, we’re more social and collaborative than we thought. And Wikipedia is only one example of human nobility and cooperation on the web. There are jillions of others, including the global microloan site Kiva; the open-source software system Linux; Webcanvas.com, a worldwide collaborative painting; countless electric car forums where people help each other convert gas engines to electric, and the list goes on.
 
We’ve socialized media, software, knowledge, and philanthropy but not politics – or at least, not to the extent that it could be. In the political arena, we do the same things we’ve always done, even if we use new tools. Occupy Wall St. might have a Facebook page and a Twitter feed, but it’s still a good old-fashioned protest. MoveOn.org on the left and TheVanguard.org on the right make it easy for people to spread the message, but it’s still a message crafted by the few for the many.
We can do better. We have the tools to create a parallel government, a Congress of the people, that lives online, transparent and open to all.
 
Imagine a wiki for cutting $1.2 trillion, something that starts where, for instance, YouCutTheBudget.com ends. That site lets you do the exercise individually but not collaboratively. Or imagine a jobs bill online, one that Americans write. We can vote on provisions and proposals. We can post suggestions. We can have a real participatory debate. And politicians would be free to ignore us at their peril.
There might have to be several of these wikis to accommodate different points of view, but Americans could in effect vote with their mouses on which they prefer. Locally, we might be able to better manage road construction projects and school textbook decisions by making these things truly transparent and done together.
If we can collaboratively create an encyclopedia of all the knowledge in the world and constantly edit it and moderate disputes, how hard could it be to create a better jobs bill or a better budget online?
 
Let’s use the tools we have to do more than spread messages around – let’s send a message: America needs a new political system, a social one, where participation means more than voting or donating to a campaign. In this new politics, we’ll create the platform and politicians will embrace it, rather than the other way around. It’s time to make participatory democracy mean something again.
_________________________________

Jim Sollisch is creative director at Marcus Thomas Advertising.

"La Chittarra Romana " - (video) by Hénock Gugsa

Oggi, Ho Bisogno di Roma!
----------
(video) by Hénock Gugsa

A Bad Oops Moment - by Anonymous

A Bad Oops Moment
------------------
by Anonymous
An example of why we should never make hasty assumptions or inferences and conclusions on the basis of a snippet of information ....

A little girl runs out to the backyard where her father is working, and asks him, "Daddy, what's Sex?"

"OK," he thinks, "this day was bound to come, and I'm not going to let my little princess learn about sex from the streets."

So, he sits her down, and tells her all about the birds and the bees. He tells her about conception, sexual intercourse, sperms and eggs. He tells her about puberty, menstruation, erections, and wet dreams.

Then she asks, "Daddy, what is 'A Couple'?"

And he carries on, "A couple are the two people involved in sex, but this can also be two males or two females which we call homosexual relationships," and he goes on to describe in detail several other topics in the vast arena of sex.

When he was done, he finally asks, "So why did you want to know about 'a couple' and 'Sex'?"

... Came the answer ....

"Oh, mummy said lunch would be ready in a couple of secs..."

"How to be a failure in 4 easy steps" - Dale Dauten

"How to be a failure, in four easy steps"
------------------------
by Dale Dauten (*)  

Today let us consider how lives and careers come apart – or, said another way, how to fail. During the past year I’ve been doing volunteer career counseling at a men’s center, a place for starting over. While many of those I’ve encountered simply have had a run of bad luck and are regaining their balance quickly, others seem to have mastered the art of screwing up. From the latter, I’ve put together this Guide to Being a Bonehead.

• Don’t know what you don’t know.

If there’s one point the “how to succeed” literature agrees upon, it’s that confidence and a positive attitude are the underpinnings of achievement. Well, if there were “how to fail” literature, it would be full of stories of overconfidence and overpositivism.

Those who have collected the most failures are often the ones who offer the most advice, making assertions with stunning absence of self-doubt. The ones quickly rebounding in their lives and careers are different. They ask the most questions. Said another way, it’s the difference between know-it-alls and learn-it-alls.

• When things go bad, go with them.

In the physics of failure, the critical factor is momentum. The “tipping point” was a health or business failure, being laid off, an arrest, drug habit or divorce. Financial and personal problems tumble down together.

For many of these men, living out their own versions of “Jerry Springer” scenes, their salvation came when they walked away. One young man told of the day his wife introduced him to the man whose baby she was carrying: “I shook his hand and said, 'Thank you – she’s your problem now,’ and walked out for good.”

Having left dreadful environments, the men most likely to succeed have found the humility to understand that they are not stronger than their environment. As one of the recovering addicts put it: “I don’t have to just avoid ‘using,’ I have to avoid ‘using behavior.’ That means giving up all my old friends.” Misery doesn’t just love company, it has an active recruiting program.

• Believe that your job is a dead end.

Every job is a dead end if your end is dead. What people who fail often rarely understand is that every job is an audition.

• Believe that “we’re all in this alone.”

Despite all we hear about the brutal new economic realities, there is still plenty of kindness in strangers. There are still people willing to help. Let’s end with one such story of helping, one perfect for the Christmas season.

Having been kicked out of his apartment, and eventually those of all his friends, a young man was wandering the streets one night when he tried the doors of a nearby church, found one unlocked and spent the rest of the night curled up in a pew. He was awakened by a group of the ladies of the church.

To their credit, the women of the Presbyterian church did not get the police; they got breakfast. They also got him a motel room for the next night and then found him a spot in the men’s center. Those women did more than get him a meal or a place to sleep, they made him want to be like them, made him want to be one of those giving help, which is a marvelous definition of success.
________________________________________________

(*) Corporate Curmudgeon - Minneapolis Star Tribune, December 19, 2001

Fire and Ice - by Robert Frost

Fire and Ice
-------------
by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favour fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

The Inequality Map - by David Brooks

The Inequality Map
-------------------
By DAVID BROOKS
Op-Ed Columnist / NY Times
November 10, 2011
Foreign tourists are coming up to me on the streets and asking, “David, you have so many different kinds of inequality in your country. How can I tell which are socially acceptable and which are not?”

The intellectual, cultural and scientific findings that land on the columnist’s desk nearly every day.

This is an excellent question. I will provide you with a guide to the American inequality map to help you avoid embarrassment.

Academic inequality is socially acceptable. It is perfectly fine to demonstrate that you are in the academic top 1 percent by wearing a Princeton, Harvard or Stanford sweatshirt.

Ancestor inequality is not socially acceptable. It is not permissible to go around bragging that your family came over on the Mayflower and that you are descended from generations of Throgmorton-Winthrops who bequeathed a legacy of good breeding and fine manners.

Fitness inequality is acceptable. It is perfectly fine to wear tight workout sweats to show the world that pilates have given you buns of steel. These sorts of displays are welcomed as evidence of your commendable self-discipline and reproductive merit.

Moral fitness inequality is unacceptable. It is out of bounds to boast of your superior chastity, integrity, honor or honesty. Instead, one must respect the fact that we are all morally equal, though our behavior and ethical tastes may differ.

Sports inequality is acceptable. It is normal to wear a Yankees jersey, an L.S.U. T-shirt or the emblem of any big budget team. The fact that your favorite sports franchise regularly grounds opponents into dust is a signal of your overall prowess.

Church inequality is unacceptable. It would be uncouth to wear a Baptist or Catholic or Jewish jersey to signal that people of your faith are closer to God. It is wrong to look down on other faiths on the grounds that their creeds are erroneous.

Income inequality is acceptable. If you are a star baseball player, it is socially acceptable to sell your services for $25 million per year (after all, you have to do what’s best for your family). If you are a star C.E.O., it’s no longer quite polite to receive an $18 million compensation package, but everybody who can still does it

Spending inequality is less acceptable. If you make $1 billion, it helps to go to work in jeans and black T-shirts. It helps to live in Omaha and eat in diners. If you make $200,000 a year, it is acceptable to spend money on any room previously used by servants, like the kitchen, but it is vulgar to spend on any adult toy that might give superficial pleasure, like a Maserati.

Technological inequality is acceptable. If you are the sort of person who understands the latest hardware and software advances, who knows the latest apps, it is acceptable to lord your superior connoisseurship over the aged relics who do not understand these things.

Cultural inequality is unacceptable. If you are the sort of person who attends opera or enjoys Ibsen plays, it is not acceptable to believe that you have a more refined sensibility than people who like Lady Gaga, Ke$ha or graffiti.

Status inequality is acceptable for college teachers. Universities exist within a finely gradated status structure, with certain schools like Brown clearly more elite than other schools. University departments are carefully ranked and compete for superiority.

Status inequality is unacceptable for high school teachers. Teachers at this level strongly resist being ranked. It would be loathsome to have one’s department competing with other departments in nearby schools.

Beer inequality is on the way down. There used to be a high status difference between microbrews and regular old Budweiser. In academic jargon, beer had a high Gini Coefficient. But as microbrews went mainstream, these status differences diminished.

Cupcake inequality is on the way up. People will stand for hours outside of gourmet cupcake stores even though there are other adequate cupcakes on offer with no waiting at nearby Safeways.

Travel inequality is acceptable. It is perfectly normal to have separate check-in lines and boarding procedures for airline patrons who have achieved Gold, Platinum, Double Ruby or Sun God status.

Supermarket inequality is unacceptable. It would not be permissible to have separate checkout lines at the grocery store for obese frequent buyers who consume a lot of Twinkies.

Jock inequality is unacceptable if your kid is an average performer on his or her youth soccer team. If your kid is a star, then his or her accomplishments validate your entire existence.

Vocation inequality is acceptable so long as you don’t talk about it. Surgeons have more prestige than valet parkers, but we do not acknowledge this. On the other hand, ethnic inequality — believing one group is better than another — is unacceptable (this is one of our culture’s highest achievements).

Dear visitor, we are a democratic, egalitarian people who spend our days desperately trying to climb over each other. Have a nice stay. 

The Yogurt Fly - by Hénock Gugsa

THE YOGURT FLY (የ  እርጐ  ዝንብ )
--------------
by Hénock Gugsa ©  

A while back, I was sitting at a café with an old school friend ... drinking coffee and just shooting the breeze ... having a wonderful and jovial conversation.  We had begun doing this as a weekly ritual.  My friend is fully retired, and I am effectively semi-retired, and anyway we both agree that Facebook somehow just is not enough for old folks like us.  Interfacing on the computer cannot match actual face-to-face interaction between friends.  But sometimes, this rare luxury is spoiled by the appearance on the scene of some unwanted persons.  There are indeed such people out there who just drop in uninvited and insert themselves in private conversations. There is no rhyme or reason (or should I say excuse) for spoiling the good ambiance of a favorite café.  In Ethiopia, such people are, not unkindly, and collectively labelled: Yogurt fly.

The common garden-variety picnic ant has nothing on the pesky and ugly green fly of great infamy.  Even its Latin name gives one pause: Calliphora  Vomitoria! ....  But, some people simply refer to it as a green-bottle-fly ... an innocuous and nonsensical appellation!

Literally-descriptive Ethiopians, on the other hand, named this terrorist insect: “yogurt fly” (የ እርጐ ዝንብ ) ... because of what it does.  A person may just be getting ready to enjoy a glass of yogurt or some specially-prepared milkshake.  Then out of nowhere and with great and malicious speed, the fly appears and just literally dives into the delicacy in much the same manner as a kamikaze pilot. There is no escaping this fly!  And after it has landed on the yogurt and is feasting with spiteful greed, there is not much else to do but to dispose of the yogurt in disgust and frustration.

Understandably, such flies are despised, and people who behave like them are treated likewise as well.  They are avoided with passion and soon become friend-less.  It is true that butt-in-skis and busy-bodies are everywhere, but we patiently tolerate and cope with their behavior.  I suppose there is nothing else one can do with such people.

In old and ever-wise Ethiopia, when a child behaves in a manner akin to a yogurt fly, he is right away given that nickname.  And it will stick unless the child takes the reprimand to heart and shirks his bad ways (manners) once and for all!  Such shaming  is actually very effective psychologically, and I wish it were practiced more here!

"Lesson on Bullying" - by Felissa Elfenbein

"Lesson on Bullying"
--------
by Felissa Elfenbein (posted on FaceBook)
A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform.
 
She had the children take a piece of paper, and [she] told them to crumple it up, stomp on it, and really mess it up. But they were to make sure not to rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out, and observe how scarred and dirty it had now become.

She then asked them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they'd left behind ... and that those scars would never go away no matter how hard the children tried to fix the damage. That is what happens when a child bullies another child, the teacher told them -  you may say you’re sorry but the scars will be there forever.

The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message had hit home.

*******************************************************************
Pass this on, or better yet ... if you're a parent or a teacher,  
impart this lesson to your children (or your students).

*******************************************************************

 

"Hello Operator" - by Anonymous

HELLO OPERATOR
-------------------
Actual call center conversations!

Customer: 'I've been calling 700-1000 for two days and can't get through; Can you help?'

Operator: 'Where did you get that number, sir?'

Customer: 'It's on the door of your business.'

Operator: 'Sir, those are the hours that we are open.'
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Samsung Electronics
Caller: 'Can you give me the telephone number for Jack?'

Operator: 'I'm sorry, sir, I don't understand who you are talking about.'

Caller: 'On page 1, section 5, of the user guide it clearly states that I need to unplug the fax machine from the AC wall socket and telephone jack before cleaning. Now, can you give me the number for Jack?'

Operator: 'I think it means the telephone plug on the wall.'
-----------------------------------------------------------

RAC Motoring Services

Caller: 'Does your European Breakdown Policy cover me when I am traveling in Australia ?'

Operator: 'Does the product name give you a clue?'
---------------------------------------------------

Caller (inquiring about legal requirements while traveling in Europe) :
'If I register my car in France, and then take it to England, do I have to change
the steering wheel to the other side of the car?'
-------------------------------------------------

Directory Inquiries
Caller: 'I'd like the number of the Argo Fish Bar, please'

Operator: 'I'm sorry, there's no listing. Are you sure that the spelling is correct?'

Caller: 'Well, it used to be called the Bargo Fish Bar but the 'B' fell off.'
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Then there was the caller who asked for a knitwear company in Woven.

Operator: 'Woven? Are you sure?'

Caller: 'Yes. That's what it says on the label -- Woven in Scotland '
----------------------------------------------------------------------

On another occasion, a man making heavy breathing sounds from a phone box told a worried operator: 'I haven't got a pen, so I'm steaming up the window to write the number on.'
--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tech Support: 'I need you to right-click on the Open Desktop.'

Customer: 'OK.'

Tech Support: 'Did you get a pop-up menu?'

Customer: 'No.'

Tech Support: 'OK . Right-Click again. Do you see a pop-up menu?'

Customer: 'No.'

Tech Support: 'OK, sir. Can you tell me what you have done up until this Point?'

Customer: 'Sure. You told me to write 'click' and I wrote 'click'.'
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Tech Support: 'OK. At the bottom left hand side of your screen, can
you see the 'OK' button displayed?'

Customer: 'Wow! How can you see my screen from there?'
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Caller: 'I deleted a file from my PC last week and I just realized that I need it. So, if I turn my system clock back two weeks will I get my file back again?'
----------------------------------------------------------------------

This has to be one of the funniest things in a long time. I think this guy should have been promoted, not fired. This is a true story from the WordPerfect Helpline, which was transcribed from a recording monitoring the customer care department. Needless to
say the Help Desk employee was fired; however, he/she is currently suing the WordPerfect organization for 'Termination without Cause.'

Actual dialogue of a former WordPerfect Customer Support employee.
(Now I know why they record these conversations!):

Operator: 'Ridge Hall, computer assistance; may I help you?'
Caller: 'Yes, well, I'm having trouble with WordPerfect.'
Operator: 'What sort of trouble??'
Caller: 'Well, I was just typing along, and all of a sudden the words went away.'
Operator: 'Went away?'
Caller: 'They disappeared'
Operator: 'Hmm. So what does your screen look like now?'
Caller: 'Nothing.'
Operator: 'Nothing??'
Caller: 'It's blank; it won't accept anything when I type.'
Operator: 'Are you still in WordPerfect, or did you get out?'
Caller: 'How do I tell?'
Operator: 'Can you see the 'C: prompt' on the screen?'
Caller: 'What's a sea-prompt?'
Operator: 'Never mind, can you move your cursor around the screen?'
Caller: 'There isn't any cursor; I told you, it won't accept anything I type.'
Operator: 'Does your monitor have a power indicator??'
Caller: 'What's a monitor?'
Operator: 'It's the thing with the screen on it that looks like a TV.
Does it have a little light that tells you when it's on?'
Caller: 'I don't know.'
Operator: 'Well, then look on the back of the monitor and find where the power cord goes into it. Can you see that??'
Caller: 'Yes, I think so.'
Operator: 'Great. Follow the cord to the plug, and tell me if it's
plugged into the wall.
Caller: 'Yes, it is.'
Operator: 'When you were behind the monitor, did you notice that there were two cables plugged into the back of it, not just one? '
Caller: 'No.'
Operator: 'Well, there are. I need you to look back there again and find the other cable.'
Caller: 'Okay, here it is.'
Operator: 'Follow it for me, and tell me if it's plugged securely into the back of your computer.'
Caller: 'I can't reach.'
Operator: 'OK. Well, can you see if it is?'
Caller: 'No.'
Operator: 'Even if you maybe put your knee on something and lean way over?'
Caller: 'Well, it's not because I don't have the right angle -- it's because it's dark.'
Operator: 'Dark?'
Caller: 'Yes - the office light is off, and the only light I have is coming in from the window.'
Operator: 'Well, turn on the office light then.'
Caller: 'I can't.'
Operator: 'No? Why not?'
Caller: 'Because there's a power failure.'
Operator: 'A power ... A power failure? Aha. Okay, we've got it
licked now. Do you still have the boxes and manuals and packing stuff that your computer came in?'
Caller: 'Well, yes, I keep them in the closet.'
Operator: 'Good. Go get them, and unplug your system and pack it up just like it was when you got it. Then take it back to the store you bought it from.'
Caller: 'Really? Is it that bad?'
Operator: 'Yes, I'm afraid it is.'
Caller: 'Well, all right then, I suppose. What do I tell them?'
Operator: 'Tell them you're too stupid to own a computer!

************************************************************************