I am willing to be wrong except when I'm right.

I like shopping car(t)s

*my brother said "'Walmarts is'"? quoting me after reading this, claiming a grammatical error. I'm an english major. I don't make grammatical errors. So to explain, a few of us in my family call WalMart "WalMarts" at all times whether plural or not.*

you know what I think?
McDonalds and WalMarts are taking over the world
slowly
every WalMarts has a McDonalds or two inside
and then another in the far end of the parking lot
Independent of McDonalds, Walmarts is huge
what I think will happen is that pretty soon Walmarts will be so everywhere that no one will have to drive to WalMarts anymore
and then they will make the WalMarts stores bigger cuz they won't need parking lots. what people will do is get souped up shopping carts.
they'll install small sound systems inside the handles that you can plug earphones into
giving a whole new meaning to the dance move "the shopping cart"
cuz you can groove it, bass rocking the heartbeat of the cart, as you move it down the isle toward the check out stand or McDonalds
and some people will go so far as to get bigger wheels, jacked up
shiny chrome rims, spinning on the side
Headlights?
yeah
why not? Vacuums have lights on them (a feature that's always pleased me)
for the extravagant parent, the kiddie seat will be recline-able
a cushy leather seat
with a belt like they have in race cars. why not add a stick shift thingy while you're at it. Oh, that would be cool. Standard shopping carts with gears...
Walmarts would start selling shopping handle covers. Oh, please incorporate rear/side view mirrors, somehow.
Cup holders! oh, yes definitely. That way you can drink and drive at the same time, and eat and drive. cuz I know that would be something I'd miss not being able to - to drive from the McDonalds at the end of the(what used to be)parking lot to my coveted parking spot, like 17 "rows" away from the front, while eating my big mac.
Padded interior, extra storage, fold away seats, air conditioning, built in dvd player, elliptical-powered so you can exercise while you shop...pretty much, we wouldn't even need homes.
But, the "cart collector" would lose his job...
Anyway, just you wait and see....and anyway, let's say WalMarts doesn't take over the world....why not have incredible, awesome shopping carts anyway? I like shopping carts.

Regardless of how you start out, you don't have to end up anything but dead.

Super Read

Jeffrey R. Holland "For Times of Trouble" New Era, 1980, 6

I listened to this rebroadcast itself on the radio. It was super duper. You might check it out!

Read It Or Not

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mind! Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

Amzanig huh? yaeh and I awlyas thought slpeling was ipmorantt.

I Wish...I Might

The other day I was talking to my friend and I randomly asked him if he had a "granted wish" card, what he would use it for. He thought a minute and came up with a large sum of money to do good-willed acts of service forever more. Noble wish, right? I agreed. Then I asked something I never really thought to ask before: What would you wish for if you had all the money you ever needed? Then he couldn't really think of anything. I couldn't think of anything either at first. Then I figured I wouldn't need anything material, so I thought maybe I'd wish for something vain, like the ability to say the word and my hair would look perfect, just the way I want it to. It would save me all that time I would need to be out doing all my costly acts of service. And then I'd look good doing it.

Well, what IF everyone in the world had all the money they would ever need? (and drop the wish option for now.) I think we might spend most of our energies discovering ways to make everything faster, more efficient, etc., so that everything was functionable with the wave of a hand or the touch of a finger. (beside the point: do you think all the time spent inventing ways to save time evens out into saving time?) Do you think we'd fund the discovery of the cure for cancer with our money? Would we ditch the earth and all move to space? For those who stayed on Earth do you think there would be any wars? If the dispute that caused the war was over land or something, I doubt there could be a "highest bidder" to solve that one. (Well I guess those in space would have space wars, too. Why stop fighting even when there's nothing to fight over?) Do you think wars would occur more frequently? Do you think more evil or more good would be spread if we had all the money necessary to buy anything we wanted or needed?

Really...what do you think would happen?

Misc. Communication

The other day I was writing, and I wrote, "and nothing can stop it," speaking of God's work being spread on the earth. I noticed that that sentence is applicable in two ways:
Way #1: There is nothing that will stop the restored gospel from inhabiting this planet again. God said so.
Way #2: Doing nothing can stop blessings from entering our lives. Doing nothing can stop many things from happening (think of not exercising or not eating). God does have a will, and if our will is not the same, doing a little of nothing here and there can in fact stop certain aspects of God's work being spread in or through our lives.(Mosiah 27:13)

I love opening one shell and getting two nuts, as it were, like that.

A Few of My Favorite Things

When the hanger I use is the same (or close to same) color as the thing I'm haning.

Eating the outer-roasted marshmallow layer, roasting it again, eating it again, and so forth.

Warm M&Ms; when the thin, candy shell breaks into a soft, melted middle.

Sticking my hand in a bucket of dry rice or beans or the like.

Peeling dried Elmer's glue off the palm of my hand.

Jumping on the trampoline when it's super windy.

Vanilla ice cream with Rice Krispies mixed in.

Compliments to/from complete strangers.

Laughing really long at nothing, really.

Drinking milk while eating popcorn.

Cereal with long-lasting crunch.

Clothes fresh out of the dryer.

The smell of wet pavement.

Or freshly mowed lawn.

Being debt-free.

New shampoo.

Hammocks.

Traditions.

Forgiving.

Thunder.

Wading.

Wind.

A Thought

If you get what you want, but it wasn't what you deserved, you'll get what you deserve eventually.

Bored Purchasing Board

I picked out my coffin today. It was wrong, I know. Usually, and quite often naturally, the person purchasing a coffin isn't the dead one whose body will inhabit it for many lifeless years to follow. No one went shopping with me. I couldn't blame them.

It could be a bit early to pick out a coffin that I fancy. What if someday they ("they") invent an impressively stylish one that I like more than the one I put on lay-away today? Maybe then, I should make an annual sport of picking out the coffin most suitable to my contemporary tastes. I don't see why not. Now there's a new year's resolution: If I die this year, at least my bones will rest in style. (With the liberty of finding my own coffin, can I also request to have my arms behind me, cradling my head and my ankles crossed at the other end so, though entirely bereft of feeling, I can at least appear to have died while relaxing in a hammock?)

Is it perverse? Does it make you think I'm preparing to die? I don't think so. What if coffin prices steadily rise over the years that I'm not dead? Maybe I'll be saving myself a few hundred, even thousand dollars by getting one now. That's just thrifty.

Does it make you think I want to die? I don't think so. I mean, I know I will eventually. It was in the not so small print when I signed up for life. In a religion class the teacher said a little something about Hugh Nibley dying. Ben, whose life is one to be lived with mental challenges, asked, "Why did he have to die?" to which one of the class members replied, "Because he was born." I'm one of those that's been born.

Can you ever be prepared to die? I guess you could create a will, be sure you're out of debt, be living a nice, clean life.... As the last hours of sand slip through the narrow glass neck of life, is anyone really prepared to do what it is we do when we die? To no longer be paired body and mind? "They" say death is a beginning. Other "they"s say death is not an end. Can it be simultaneously unending and a new beginning?

Not that a coffin really matters to me, but it's interesting to think my body will be housed in a box of coexisting ends and beginnings. The unfortunate thing is that I won't be able to tell how that feels or how it happens, and the unfortunate thing for you will be that I'll be dead. But at least you won't have to worry about getting me a coffin.