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I received a phone call several years ago before everybody on your street had a computer.

The older librarian at a university I was attending called me for help with the new computer they had installed to connect with other libraries. She couldn’t get it to do anything she had been trained to do with it.

Well, I didn’t have a clue about the software she was using, but I’m usually a good problem solver. So, I started asking her basic questions to figure out what she may be doing wrong.

“What are you unable to do?”

“I can’t move the mouse over anything I want.”

“The mouse won’t move?”

“No, the mouse moves. I just can’t get it to move over anything.”

“What does the mouse do when you try to move it over something?”

“It just goes anywhere it wants.”

“So, when you try to move the mouse over an object it moves where ever it wants?”

“Yes, anytime I move the mouse it goes all over the place. I can’t move it where I want.”

This went on for several minutes before I finally started to realize what was happening.

I asked her, “What happens when you push the mouse to the right?”

“It goes down to the left,” she said.

“Where is the cable that hooks to the mouse pointing?”– I asked her.

“Well, it’s kind of pointing toward me,” she told me.

“Ok.” I responded. “Turn the mouse so the cable is pointing toward the computer and the buttons are by your fingers.”

“Oh,” she exclaimed. “It works now! Oh, my goodness. I feel so silly. Thank you so much.”

You can imagine I had a good laugh when I got off the phone. I could hardly fathom someone trying to use the mouse backward.

Well, the other day, one of the guys at work grabbed his mouse backward. You guessed it. For a split second, he tried to use it. For sure, he switched it around quickly enough. But not before issuing a “what in the world is going on?” in the same split second before he switched around his mouse.

In the next few moments our “you can’t use a mouse like that” acknowledgment turned into an attempt to use the mouse like that. After a chuckle at complete failure, we went on about our business. As we went back to work, I told him about the older librarian I just told you about. And, then, the incident was over.

A little later that day, I remembered that my father had always played his harmonica backward. Why? Because it’s how he picked it up the first time. He even lost a bet when he was in the army saying the high notes were on the left side of a piano, because of how he had picked up the harmonica the first time. He played it backward until his death.

In the same second I remembered my father’s backward harmonica, I thought about the older librarian picking her mouse up backward. I wondered what would have happened if she didn’t have help. Would she have learned to use the mouse backward?

Are there people out there using their mouse sideways? Does someone use their mouse backward?

I can’t imagine it, but I’ll bet you it’s true. Someone out there right now has the cable on their mouse pointed at them.

“How else would you use the mouse?” they would ask you.

Here a mouse, there a mouse. Everywhere a mouse, mouse.

Regards.

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What was it like to win the lottery?

Well, first off, I can remember when our group at work would each talk about what we would do if we won. It’s really a big insight into every aspect of a person’s life.

We called our group the ‘corporation.’ We usually would put $5.00 each into it. However, that amount would usually climb as the amount in the lottery went up. We always played Power Ball. But, we would take turns buying the tickets. Each person could decide how to spend the pool when it was their turn to buy. We would run copies of all the tickets and distribute them to each person in the corporation. The number of people in the corporation would go up and down. I just had to be in it. I would have kicked myself forever if that one time I didn’t get in was the one time it hit. That could almost ruin your life for good.

One of the guys made us all swear not to let anyone know he was in the ‘corporation.’ He didn’t want it to get back to his ex-wife if we ever won anything. He couldn’t even consider the possibility of that drug addicted ‘witch’ getting any more of his money.

One of the guys never made any secret to his wife being gone if he won it. Now there’s a happy marriage for you. They stayed together, why?, before winning? I think he was the first to tell me the joke about the guy that won the lottery and told his wife to pack her bags when he got home. When she asked if she should pack for cold weather or warm weather he told he he didn’t care–as long as she was gone by morning. Anyway, he always said he would give his wife half and they would just go their separate ways.

One of the other guys was going to stay home and get drunk every day. All he wanted was to quit and drink. Now, there’s a formula for longevity, I used to think.

As the amount in the lottery would change, someone would always have it figured what each of our splits would be after taxes. Of course we never even considered anything except the lump sum payment. Some of us wanted to get a lawyer to handle it all, so no one would ever know who had actually won the money.

Just about everyone said they would never go back to work again, except, some, to gloat. Some used to get rather elaborate with their stories of how they would say this or that, or leave some ruthless email to that person, or tell off that boss.

Me? I never said much about it. But, I always started out calculating exactly how much I would have to invest with my split. I would calculate the return for around an 8% investment. That’s about as much as you can get with low risk. I would pay off all debt, make the investment, help the people on my help list, and live happily ever after.

The amount I had to have, in my head, before I could quit work started out being enough to earn at least $80,000.00 per year. But, after several months of hoping and dreaming, that amount kept going down. I finally had it calculated where I could retire if I only had $20,000.00 a year coming in.

I used to say “No bills, except maybe a car, gas and electric, phone, internet, and whatever you need to eat out occasionally. Shoot, I could retire with as little as $15,000 a year, maybe.

Every time someone would say how stupid we were, we would remind them that SOMEONE had to win it. Anyone that ever won it had the same chance. It was worth a buck just to be in the game–just to have the hope, the fun, the dream of life changing. It was that much fun even if we never won it.

So, actually winning the lottery, what was it like?

I pray to God I can tell you that, after we win it tonight!

Regards.

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What I’m about to share with you must be kept in the strictest confidence. If you cannot agree to keep quiet, then you must stop reading at this point. Seriously, I could get in a lot of trouble for years to come for sharing this openly.

You are sworn to silence.

This is something that has been hidden by all men for generations. In fact, you can’t tell anyone you know this, and especially can’t tell anyone you got it from me. I could be hunted and killed like a snake. Which is what the men reading this will think I am.

Yes, I will be labeled a traitor.

Anyway, Do you remember when you first got married, how you walked in on your husband when he was doing laundry?

I know this is like asking you to go to the library and sort through all the microfiche or dig through all the newspaper archives. But if you give it some effort, I’ll bet you can remember your man actually putting some clothes in a washer at least once.

What you likely didn’t know, until this betrayal, was that he had been waiting there for quite some time for you to walk in and see him. He might have even been making some noise to attract you into the laundry room. At the very least, he worked hard to make sure you were seeing him in the process of putting the clothes in the washer at just the right time to catch him.

OK, so you may feel that this is much to do about nothing. Well, that is where you are mistaken.

This is, and has been for 3 generations, actually since the late 1940’s, a closely guarded secret with sworn silence. The young men returning from World War II had all been involved in this–actually indoctrinated. It began with high-ranking marines and filtered its way through to every branch of the military. In fact, this wasn’t just an American phenomenon. It made it’s way through the ranks of all the allied troops. In fact, you’ll find much higher, more polished forms of this in Great Britain–albeit some Canadian forms, while somewhat obscure, are well refined.

Men train up their sons in this religiously. In fact, I’m almost compelled by the shear force of revere and brotherhood to break off this discloser at once.

For you women out there that really believe your husband is truly stupid about washing clothes, I have news for you. We really know what colors not to mix. Come on. Think about it. Only and idiot wouldn’t know this. Do you think for half a second that our putting the reds and whites together wasn’t a carefully calculated plan to never have to help with laundry again?

Ok guys. I’m truly sorry. But 3 generations of this distortion of truth just had to be set right. I’m to be pitied for being the one to do it–I know.

Well, I’m a bit taken back as to whether I should share the whole of it or not . . .

Oh, why not. Let’s just make a clean sweep of it, while we’re at it.

I know you ladies have had the pleasure, be it a rare pleasure, of finding your man doing the dishes (sorry guys). This is more of the same, but with a different twist.

This behavior actually didn’t develop until the wide spread use of automatic dishwashers. It has two forms.

The first form is related to the laundry event. It has the same goal, namely: to never have to help with dishes again.

It usually expresses itself in dropping one of the more noisy pieces of the finer silverware. It is done in a fashion designed to attract the most attention. The door of the dishwasher is wide open with all the rest, that could be fit, of the china and silverware in the dishwasher. “Oh dear.” is the intended spousal response. Yes, “oh dear.”

Oh dear, and Voila! No more dishes for such and ignorant man.

Now the second form this behavior has exhibited is expressed in attention just the same, but attention for another purpose. It takes the form of filling the dishwasher with all the dirty dishes, but, instead of removing the chore from the man’s list of things he can do, is designed to be raised as a memorial to the man’s help and support of his darling wife. This will sometimes be done prior to a request for getting a computer or some other thing he wants, but it is often used just to get points for later use as well.

This second form, while not quite as malevolent as the first, can be quite devious. Especially when one considers that the man may have had the dishwasher loaded for the better part of a day waiting for the wife to be in just the right spot at just the right time for the greatest impact.

Well, there. You have it. I may have just signed my own death warrant, but right is right. Now, I can go to bed with a clear conscience. One of the first in over 60 years of keeping such a thing from our women.

Forgive me.

Regards.

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