The Theft
There he was, walking down the center aisle of the busy mall pushing his purple walker (hence the nickname Mr. P.W) and inhaling supplemental oxygen. It had taken me some time to relocate him, I had briefly gone into a store and he bypassed me. He gets along pretty good for a man in his shape! He was slightly hunched forward with his face tilted to the ground watching where he stepped, he took short steps but they got him to his destinations. He paid no attention to the throngs that passed him so closely they bumped up against him. Not good judgment. Everyone should be alert when in public these days, especially the frail and young. Any number of opportunities presented themselves to swipe his billfold, which was my goal.
When he got to the children’s area, he sat down on his portable seat. He seemed to enjoy watching the kids amuse themselves. I, myself, was amazed the kids never seemed to be injured with all the rough housing they did. Everything was heavily padded and geared for the communities smallest citizens. Adults were restricted from the play area being allowed spectators rights only. I could still see the prominent bulge in his sweat pants pocket (the back pocket! Keep your mind clean!) .
I stayed at a distance to keep him from spotting me, though there was little danger of that, I doubted he would be able to pick me out in a horde this size. He was paying no consideration to the other shoppers. Dumb. Most of the mall’s customers looked more like prison parolees, wearing spiked dog collars about their necks, pants that looked like double duty duffle bags, big enough to tote all their belongings, (or conceal weapons), and shirts displaying glorified demonic images. Kids playing hooky from school, dropouts, unemployed bums, wolves in lambskin vests. This place was crawling with evil looking for prospects and I hoped to be the first hit on this man. I’d be kind to him, a gentle hit and run.
Mr. Purple Walker was the ideal target, unmindful of danger. In addition, a WW2 vet at that, as advertised by his baseball cap. That placed him in his eighties. As much as he must have seen in his life, you think he would have learned vigilance. Doesn’t he read the papers, the elderly are easy marks, and crime against them is on the rise. I was just waiting for my chance to add him to the statistics, prowling after him like a lion in the African savannah. He was old and feeble, easy prey for a hungry lion. Heck, a lone, malnourished rabbit could topple him over!
At a bookstore’s cash register, I spied several large bills in Mr. P.W’s arthritic hand as he paid for his purchases, which had taken some time for him to select. Wow, he had lots of mullah on his body. He placed his wallet casually into his hip pocket, so casually I could see three inches of his chubby money receptacle just pleading to be heisted and I was willing to accommodate its desires. I looked about to be certain no one else detected my objective; however, good criminal minds know how to wear a poker face. There could have been dozens of other “lions” tailing Mr. P.W but I vowed to strike first. He needed to be taught a lesson about safety and I was volunteering to be his tutor.
My opportunity was fast approaching. I recognized the path he was heading down now, a long hallway leading to the rest rooms behind all the stores, practically deserted. It was the closest thing to a dark alley. I psyched myself up for his exploitation, stealthily following him, flabbergasted he never turned to look back. Not the least bit aware of his circumstances or upcoming ordeal. It was only the two of us now. Witnesses were far away in the main section of the mall. No one would hear him cry out. Closer, closer. The wallet was screaming at me. We were yards into the hallway and several feet from the men’s room when I leaned forward with my thumb and forefinger ready to grab Mr. P.W’s identity; a wallet full of personal information, address, credit cards, identification and of course his cashed retirement check’s residual.
I was so focused I didn’t notice the men’s bathroom door open. I got the wallet! Success! Wrong. I was looking into the face of a security guard who caught everything. Mr. P.W turned around, (not very quickly and not very shocked) to stare me down. He looked confused when he spotted his wallet in my hands.
The guard promptly approached me while beckoning for help on his walkie-talkie. A young punk, not even old enough to shave yet was getting ready to seize me and claim victory over crime! It wasn’t long before the exit was blocked with white shirted high school graduates wearing replicated Canadian Mountie hats and badges, looking very self-important. I was their answer to a slow afternoon.
“What are you doing?” Mr. P.W questioned.
“Teaching you a lesson about being careful with your wallet.” I responded displaying my trophy.
“Well, call me when you need a ride home from jail,” Mr. P.W offered serviceably as he headed into the bathroom snickering, pushing his walker ahead of him and puffing on his oxygen cannula.
“Dad come back here and help me explain this!” I yelled as the guards descended on me.
“What! And ruin this lesson! Not on your life!”
The bathroom door closed leaving me alone in the corridor with five excited mall guards and a fast forming crowd of spectators.
Duet. 5:16
Prov. 1:10-19
1 Tim. 5:1
James 1:27
1 Pet 5:5
1 Pet.5:8-9
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Don’t Eat On The Run!
Swimming and seafood are my two favorite things. If I had to give either one up, I would just die. I loved swimming so much I was a lifetime member of a synchronized swimming class that met in the ocean. The minute class broke up every day I was off fishing for …fish of course. Some of my classmates that have graduated live in the lap of luxury, being catered to daily. They are so full of themselves we never see them again, unless we buy a ticket to see them perform and not one of us was willing to leave the comfort zone of the ocean to go inland. We knew how to handle the danagers of water sharks, wiley land sharks were another matter all together. We, the non-graduate-life-time members became low life and inaccessible to those that sold themselves out. Being “owned” was not the life I would choose for myself. I love doing my own thing, my time is my time not some big corporation’s that tells me who I can see, when to swim, and delivers food to me. Hell, I’m fat enough with out living the soft life! I’m just in swimming school for the socialization and exercise. Don’t fall for the lie that seafood is slimming. Eat enough of anything and you need a good exercise regimen to burn calories. This is a verifiable fact as most of my classmates weigh in at the same unenviable weight as me. We work out to eat out!!
Mom heavily influenced my lifestyle. She delivered me through water birth. She didn’t have to research it as some prospective parents do, she knew instinctively it was the best way to go, easing her newborn from womb to water and then to air. (Actually, she didn’t have time for research; she was swimming herself when I decided to make my entrance, or exit! She barely had time to get me to the surface! ) Studies seem to confirm that a baby born in warm water won’t drown, it’ll get it’s air from the placenta and won’t even take a breath till it reaches the surface: it’s much kinder than dropping a baby into a cold room from a hot uterus which seems “sooooo” cruel. Honestly, people have no idea what they are doing to their young sometimes. Moreover, the whole time she was carrying me, what did she consume? What else, seafood. So my fate was sealed from conception, swimming and seafood like I mentioned at the beginning, are engraved into my constitution. You might say they’re genetically encoded on my DNA!
In my free time as I float on the waves, catching some rays and waiting for something delectable to be trapped in my net I often ponder life’s big question. Why am I here, what is God’s purpose for me? What’s the big deal? ….are questions that preoccupy me constantly. I’m not pretty. People love to stare and gawk at me. They ask themselves, (don’t think I don’t know this), how someone my size can dare to float on the water in open view, in public no less, with friends that have the same body composition! If they had my fat body, they’d keep it submerged! (They don’t realize my body fat keeps me from submerging! Idiots!) Do they think the obesity challenged have atherosclerotic hearing? Do they think ugly and dumb are synonymous? Maybe they assume I have swimmers ear and am completely deaf. Who knows? I just know I really want to understand what God had in mind for me and me only. I know it’s illogical to question the creator of the universe; but really? What was the big idea producing me, was I meant to be a joke? I have comrades in the same situation as me that don‘t seem to be embarrassed by their outer shells, totally content with their inner package. Totally! They don’t envy the pencil thin beauties that gape at us from the many boats that pass our rehearsals on their way to deep-sea fishing and ocean touring. I notice the men that stare at me then pinch the behinds of their feminine companions, making some threatening remarks about not letting themselves go. I’m big, subcutaneously challenged, and most men are afraid of me. I console myself with the fact I’m too much of a woman for them, but this knowledge doesn’t help my self-esteem when I see the women they prefer to me.
School let out early one day due to the forecast. Unexpected heavy weather was on its way and everyone was anxious to go to his or her personal haunts. The sight seeing boats that circled around our free performances were packing up and placing closed signs at the ticket offices. Every one with a brain was heading for safety. The ocean is not weather friendly. The coast was deserted, except for me. I never pass up an opportunity to get out on the deep, deep seas. Call me a fool, call me reckless, just call me! I love the perilous life of floating on the surface of choppy waters, the white waves splashing over me strong enough to capsize larger vessels; it’s the adventurous red neck in me. After long hours of training and public demonstrations to passing vessels I need to let myself go wild and throw caution to the wind, literally.
I did decided it was time to go home when I observed a huge fishing boat ahead of me being cast about like flotsam. I occasionally do give in to reason! Five sailors were peering over the side as though they lost something overboard while dozens were rushing about securing lines and hoisting sails, and whatever else it is sailors do. I wasn’t having any luck with trawling today, anyway. The fish had all descended to calmer waters so I opted to pick up some Asian food that I swallowed whole on the way to shelter as the storm whipped about me.
Suddenly I was racked with discomfort. Discomfort being a mild term for gut wrenching pain! Apparently, I’ve spent so much time limiting myself to seafood, (why is it called seafood when I get it from the ocean?) that the introduction of something foreign caused me great abdominal discomfort. I missed the next couple of days of school. Thank heavens I am not graded for attendance.
I languished about the beach to the calls of my peers encouraging me to join them. Everything below my esophagus was in spasms, for once I didn’t want to dive or snorkel or … (gasp)… eat! I was miserable. If I’d been exposed to the crime I’d swear I was pregnant with all the kicking and pushing that was taking place in my stomach! Talk about getting to know God, being sick has opened up time in my frenzied schedule for more prayer hours. I made every kind of imaginable promise if only I could get well. I’d go on a diet, I’d not bully smaller beings, I’d give the fish I trapped another chance for survival, I’d become a vegetarian. I wouldn’t question my physical configuration again, I‘d learn to be happy in whatever state I discovered myself in! Lastly, I’d stop questioning God’s authority and judgment. I don’t think I ever chatted with God as much as I did in these last few days when I thought death would be a definite health improvement.
Finally, God seemed to take into account my frail frame and the fact that I was completely at his mercy. As I rolled on the beach encircled by some of my closest friends, trying to oust what ever had troubled my tummy, I experienced a great heaving inner explosion and expelled something foul smelling onto the sand. This “something”, encrusted in fish bones, seaweed and other green vegetation, sprang to its feet and put distance between us on two wobbly appendages. Numerous feet away from the shoreline it collapsed after stumbling a few times, kissed the earth and stared at me in horror after removing a stringy veil from it‘s freshly sanded visage. I get that look enough already, friend, cut it out! So this land lover was the reason for my gastric upset. One lesson I just learned was to chew before swallowing so my food wouldn’t have a chance to disagree with me.
Two surfers approached my discarded dinner and I heard my reluctant Asian take-out-meal ask for directions to someplace called Nineveh as my buddies helped push me back out to sea on the tide. Friends are priceless, I thought to myself, I couldn’t wait to tell them how I’d questioned God and learned the meaning of my existence. God can even use an overweight ugly whale to fulfill his purpose for someone’s life. Nineveh, I’ve heard boaters talk about that evil place, making me glad I’m water bound. Jonah and I had been temporary prayer partners, praying for the same thing, though I had no interest in some land locked town I’d never see I certainly was in full approval of his release from my belly.
Gen 1:20-21
Jonah 1:17
Jonah 2:10
Math 18:20
Rom 9:19-21
1 Cor 6:1
Eph 2:10
Mom heavily influenced my lifestyle. She delivered me through water birth. She didn’t have to research it as some prospective parents do, she knew instinctively it was the best way to go, easing her newborn from womb to water and then to air. (Actually, she didn’t have time for research; she was swimming herself when I decided to make my entrance, or exit! She barely had time to get me to the surface! ) Studies seem to confirm that a baby born in warm water won’t drown, it’ll get it’s air from the placenta and won’t even take a breath till it reaches the surface: it’s much kinder than dropping a baby into a cold room from a hot uterus which seems “sooooo” cruel. Honestly, people have no idea what they are doing to their young sometimes. Moreover, the whole time she was carrying me, what did she consume? What else, seafood. So my fate was sealed from conception, swimming and seafood like I mentioned at the beginning, are engraved into my constitution. You might say they’re genetically encoded on my DNA!
In my free time as I float on the waves, catching some rays and waiting for something delectable to be trapped in my net I often ponder life’s big question. Why am I here, what is God’s purpose for me? What’s the big deal? ….are questions that preoccupy me constantly. I’m not pretty. People love to stare and gawk at me. They ask themselves, (don’t think I don’t know this), how someone my size can dare to float on the water in open view, in public no less, with friends that have the same body composition! If they had my fat body, they’d keep it submerged! (They don’t realize my body fat keeps me from submerging! Idiots!) Do they think the obesity challenged have atherosclerotic hearing? Do they think ugly and dumb are synonymous? Maybe they assume I have swimmers ear and am completely deaf. Who knows? I just know I really want to understand what God had in mind for me and me only. I know it’s illogical to question the creator of the universe; but really? What was the big idea producing me, was I meant to be a joke? I have comrades in the same situation as me that don‘t seem to be embarrassed by their outer shells, totally content with their inner package. Totally! They don’t envy the pencil thin beauties that gape at us from the many boats that pass our rehearsals on their way to deep-sea fishing and ocean touring. I notice the men that stare at me then pinch the behinds of their feminine companions, making some threatening remarks about not letting themselves go. I’m big, subcutaneously challenged, and most men are afraid of me. I console myself with the fact I’m too much of a woman for them, but this knowledge doesn’t help my self-esteem when I see the women they prefer to me.
School let out early one day due to the forecast. Unexpected heavy weather was on its way and everyone was anxious to go to his or her personal haunts. The sight seeing boats that circled around our free performances were packing up and placing closed signs at the ticket offices. Every one with a brain was heading for safety. The ocean is not weather friendly. The coast was deserted, except for me. I never pass up an opportunity to get out on the deep, deep seas. Call me a fool, call me reckless, just call me! I love the perilous life of floating on the surface of choppy waters, the white waves splashing over me strong enough to capsize larger vessels; it’s the adventurous red neck in me. After long hours of training and public demonstrations to passing vessels I need to let myself go wild and throw caution to the wind, literally.
I did decided it was time to go home when I observed a huge fishing boat ahead of me being cast about like flotsam. I occasionally do give in to reason! Five sailors were peering over the side as though they lost something overboard while dozens were rushing about securing lines and hoisting sails, and whatever else it is sailors do. I wasn’t having any luck with trawling today, anyway. The fish had all descended to calmer waters so I opted to pick up some Asian food that I swallowed whole on the way to shelter as the storm whipped about me.
Suddenly I was racked with discomfort. Discomfort being a mild term for gut wrenching pain! Apparently, I’ve spent so much time limiting myself to seafood, (why is it called seafood when I get it from the ocean?) that the introduction of something foreign caused me great abdominal discomfort. I missed the next couple of days of school. Thank heavens I am not graded for attendance.
I languished about the beach to the calls of my peers encouraging me to join them. Everything below my esophagus was in spasms, for once I didn’t want to dive or snorkel or … (gasp)… eat! I was miserable. If I’d been exposed to the crime I’d swear I was pregnant with all the kicking and pushing that was taking place in my stomach! Talk about getting to know God, being sick has opened up time in my frenzied schedule for more prayer hours. I made every kind of imaginable promise if only I could get well. I’d go on a diet, I’d not bully smaller beings, I’d give the fish I trapped another chance for survival, I’d become a vegetarian. I wouldn’t question my physical configuration again, I‘d learn to be happy in whatever state I discovered myself in! Lastly, I’d stop questioning God’s authority and judgment. I don’t think I ever chatted with God as much as I did in these last few days when I thought death would be a definite health improvement.
Finally, God seemed to take into account my frail frame and the fact that I was completely at his mercy. As I rolled on the beach encircled by some of my closest friends, trying to oust what ever had troubled my tummy, I experienced a great heaving inner explosion and expelled something foul smelling onto the sand. This “something”, encrusted in fish bones, seaweed and other green vegetation, sprang to its feet and put distance between us on two wobbly appendages. Numerous feet away from the shoreline it collapsed after stumbling a few times, kissed the earth and stared at me in horror after removing a stringy veil from it‘s freshly sanded visage. I get that look enough already, friend, cut it out! So this land lover was the reason for my gastric upset. One lesson I just learned was to chew before swallowing so my food wouldn’t have a chance to disagree with me.
Two surfers approached my discarded dinner and I heard my reluctant Asian take-out-meal ask for directions to someplace called Nineveh as my buddies helped push me back out to sea on the tide. Friends are priceless, I thought to myself, I couldn’t wait to tell them how I’d questioned God and learned the meaning of my existence. God can even use an overweight ugly whale to fulfill his purpose for someone’s life. Nineveh, I’ve heard boaters talk about that evil place, making me glad I’m water bound. Jonah and I had been temporary prayer partners, praying for the same thing, though I had no interest in some land locked town I’d never see I certainly was in full approval of his release from my belly.
Gen 1:20-21
Jonah 1:17
Jonah 2:10
Math 18:20
Rom 9:19-21
1 Cor 6:1
Eph 2:10
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