Things always turn out fine in the end.
Like working all day shoveling dirt in the hot sun, sweat blinding your eyes, your arms aching, and then lying back in a lazy boy chair drinking ice water with cool air on your face.
Or like losing your wallet with all your credit cards and some cash. The panic, imagining some homeless guy finding it and charging a new car, 10 cases of beer, and a yacht on your cards.
Then the phone rings, a nice person is saying he found your wallet and to meet him downtown to give it back to you. What a relief!
How many problems we have in life, the fear and anxiety, then all turns out well.
Like finding a funny black spot on your arm, wondering if it’s melanoma that gives you 3 months to live. Going to the doctor who sees the spot and frowns, saying it could be melanoma. Oh, great.
He sends away the biopsy to see if it’s deadly, you’ll know in two weeks if you’ll live or die. Every morning you wake up terrified. You’re a total wreck.
The doctor calls and says it’s just a freckle, you finally breathe. What a relief!
You feel it’s a constant cycle of worrying and then relief, sadistically set up to frustrate you, to make you get drunk, pound the wall, or become a Christian.
You see the TV weatherman point to the massive hurricane heading straight to the Hawaii to destroy every house in the islands. He always stretches it out for a week, saying it’s getting closer, and closer, go to Walmart, buy all the water, and toilet paper and Spam you can grab. We’re all gonna die!
Then he says Hurricane Waldo petered out and is only a soft breeze. What a relief that is. Tell me, can I sue the weatherman? Can I get a refund on the Spam?
Then there was the Vietnam War. That was a jolly picnic, sitting home all day waiting to be drafted and shipped off to some jungle to shoot people, or get shot. The suspense about gave me a heart attack.
After waiting my entire 19th year for the notice of doom, they came up with a lottery. Anyone whose number was above 100 was safe and didn’t get drafted. My number was 230. Hallelujah!
And now comes the biggest worry of all, Donald Trump winning the election.
Imagine this idiotic buffoon sneaking back into the White House. He’s a criminal and con man, who got his goons to attack the U.S. Capitol. He praises Nazis and wants to be dictator and take away our rights and our freedom. Gad, how we dread four more years of the fat man lying and conniving.
Then the morning after the election we see Kamala Harris has won! What a relief! You feel lighter with a feeling that everything’s OK now. Like you found your wallet, you’re not going to die, and the country is not crazy after all. Thank God.
Dennis Gregory writes a bi-monthly column for West Hawaii Today and welcomes your comments at makewavess@yahoo.com