My Thoughts

Insider is considering busting out of retirement and entering the job market, part-time albeit. For years, the old guy has admired one particular job. It’s got to be the most satisfying. That’s the job of the guy who delivers the flowers to patients in the hospitals and nursing homes and the bouquets of love to our sweethearts at home or the office. That guy gets the true reward of sending flowers. He gets the happy smiles and sees the tears of joy. All we do is play for the event and all we hear later is "Thank you, I got your flowers."

The old guy dreads bedtime. By the looks of the houses around the area, bedtime here on the Eastern Shore is about 11:15 p.m., right after the evening weather forecast, which may or may not give you an idea of what you will wake up to the next morning. Not so for Insider. 11 p.m. sees a feeling of resentment welling up in the old guy. It’s time to go to bed, but he doesn’t want to go to bed, and Insider refuses to be told what to do by anyone. It probably all goes back to mom and her damned "early to bed, early to rise" crap. Insider just does not want to go to bed early and rise early. He wants to go to bed late and sleep late and for years he feels as if he has been committing some kind of sin.

And in the mornings when some early bird rings the phone (between 8 and 9 a.m.) and brightly asks, "Oh, did I wake you up?," the old guy simply replies with a yes and hangs up. That person would not want a cheery call from the Insider at 12:30 p.m. The reaction would most likely be something along the lines of fear and concern that something is wrong. Someone must be hurt or amiss. Now they know how the Insider feels.

Insider does not own any pens anymore. He is a pencil man and it’s the old-fashioned kind, not the types that have brains and run on lead. The old guy is fond of the old yellow wooden delight. The ballpoint is too permanent. Make a mistake and there it remains forever. With the old lead pencil, he scribbles away and when a mistake pops up, he erases it, simple as that, and all pencils come with an eraser that generally outlasts the pencil. Gone from the desk are the jars of whiteout and the constant blowing that only dried the surface of the mistake paint. Try out the old trusty yellow soldiers you’ll like it and sharpening pencils is fund, too.