It's Always Darkest Before the Fridge Door Opens: Enjoying the Fruits of Middle Age by Martha O. Bolton & Phil Callaway

Author:Martha O. Bolton & Phil Callaway [Bolton, Martha O. & Callaway, Phil]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Education & Reference, Humor & Entertainment, Humor, Religion, Satire, Literature & Fiction, Essays & Correspondence, Essays, United States, ebook, book
ISBN: 076420307X
Amazon: B00B85AGKU
Publisher: Bethany House Publishers
Published: 2006-10-02T05:00:00+00:00

The Best News Yet

Reflect upon your present blessings,

of which every man has plenty; not on your

past misfortunes of which all men have some.

Charles Dickens

I (Phil) visited a barbershop recently. My daughter asked me why. ‘‘There’s nothing happening up there, Dad’’ is how she put it. ‘‘There’s a recession going on right on top of your head.’’ Teenagers. They get a little older and they won’t know so much. I smiled at her. And cut her out of the will.

When I arrived at the barbershop, the hairdresser walked around my head once or twice, then squinted uncomfortably at me. I watched the ordeal in the mirror.

She said, ‘‘Um . . . do you have a part?’’

I said, ‘‘Yes, it starts at my left ear and goes to my right.’’

She was still squinting. She said, ‘‘Would you like me to dye it?’’

I said, ‘‘No, you look fine to me, you don’t need to lose a pound.’’

The squint vanished and she smiled, then chuckled softly.

‘‘Just a little off the top,’’ I coached her.

It was her turn. ‘‘That’s all you have,’’ she said.

Did you ever have a haircut you wished you could get a refund on? In Oregon a mother recently threatened to sue the West Linn-Wilsonville school district because her eight-year-old boy returned home one day with ‘‘next to nothing’’ on his head. An employee had cut the boy’s hair without permission. The mother said she tried to keep her son’s hair looking neat but ‘‘there was one stinking day, and I’m not lying, that I didn’t brush his hair.’’ The district’s insurance company paid a ten thousand dollar settlement.

I remember some really bad haircuts when I was a boy. My father used to start on one side of my head, then walk around to the other side and, relying on memory, try to even it up. I ended up wearing a hat for two weeks. Then my father would cut it again.

They say that the difference between a good haircut and a bad one is about two weeks. But surgery is another matter. Most major surgeries don’t allow you to go back and fix something. And you can’t just put on a hat and make the pain go away. My older brother Dan went through the horrible ordeal of a detached retina recently.1 Just before the operation, a nurse leaned over and said, ‘‘It’s your left eye, right?’’ Dan was stunned. It was his right eye. He knew this absolutely for sure. The nurse frowned and squinted at a computer printout. ‘‘It says here it’s your left eye.’’

‘‘No, it’s not,’’ said Dan, ‘‘I can see fine with my left eye; please don’t operate on it.’’

Of course, we’re able to laugh a little later about such things. But what about when the news is the worst possible? When a trip to the doctor changes everything we’ve taken for granted? While speaking at a banquet, I sat next to Ed, an oil executive, who told me his amazing story. One year earlier he sat in his doctor’s office listening but unable to process the doctor’s horrible words.

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