Billions, Schmillions, ...It's March Madness!

I saw an estimate the other day that March Madness, the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament, will cost U.S. employers an estimated $3.8 billion in lost productivity. I'm sure there was some beauracratic dweeb economist sitting in his office overlooking the Potomac busily calculating that estimate. Scratch that. Given the size of our government, there was probably a team of dweeb economists sitting in meeting rooms across Washington, D.C. crunching those numbers.

Once they all agreed on the magic number and the report went to the top dog, I'm sure a call went to The White House, where the red phone rang in the Oval Office. The call might've gone something like this:

Bush's secretary: "Mr. President- The head of the GAO is on the line for you, sir!"

Dubbya: "The head of what? GAO? That doesn't have anything to do with gays, does it?"

"Uh, no sir. That's the head of the Government Accounting Office."

"Well, what does he want? I'm busy. Two more levels and I'll be a Pokemon trainer!"

"Yes. Um, that's great, sir, but he says it's important. He says March Madness is going to cost U.S. employers over $3.8 billion this year. He really wants to talk to you."

"March Madness, huh? I really like it, especially that Bryant Gumbel. He's my favorite announcer."

"Sir, do you mean Greg Gumbel? Byrant is his brother."

"Oh, yeah right. And I like that other guy too....what's his name?"

"Clark Kellogg?"

"Yeah, that's it. Kellogg. Reminds me of Frosted Flakes. That Tony Tiger's a real pistol. Kinda reminds me of myself."

"Yessir. Did you want to speak to the head of the GAO? He's still holding, sir...."

"Who?"

"Never mind, sir. I'll tell him you'll call back later."

Jesus and $4.99 Raspberries

My wife and I were sitting in church the other day when the pastor admonished the husbands in the congregation to treat their wives like, "Jesus treats his church." Like most church goers, as I stepped through the doorway on the way out of church, I wasn't thinking about his sermon choosing instead to focus on the laundry list of to-dos I had to accomplish that day.

But the next morning, I remembered the pastor's words (and people claim there are no miracles!) while I was at the grocery store. I thought it would be good to get some nice, fresh fruits and vegetables for my wife. As a side note- I don't know about other wives, but my wife always uses the word "nice" when she wants me to get something at the store. She'll say, "see if they have any nice steaks" or "see if they have any nice specials." I'm not exactly sure what a mean or angry steak would look like, but I think I'd know it if I saw it.

At any rate, here I was at the store thinking about treating my wife like Jesus treats his church. Then I started looking at the prices. For those of you who don't do the regular grocery shopping, I gotta tell you I was shocked. A small package of pork chops was almost $9.00! Zucchini was $2.99 a pound! Milk was nearly $5.00 a gallon. And what I really wanted to get my wife- "nice" fresh raspberries, were $4.99 for a small container not much bigger than a postage stamp.

You know, I hope my wife really enjoys those raspberries. I really do. But I can't help but wonder if Jesus has done any grocery shopping for the church lately.

Reflecting on Wearing Eyeglasses

After stumbling around the planet for nearly fifty years, I've finally succumbed to Mother Nature's cruelty. I'm now wearing eyeglasses. For those of you who have worn glasses for many years, this is probably no big deal. You put on your glasses in the same way you put on your shoes- with hardly a thought.

For me, however, it's a strange new world. I've been walking around with them for about two weeks now and I've discovered (literally) a few things. Among them:

• Everything is now crystal clear. I had become so used to living with impaired eyesight that I didn't even know how bad my eyes were. I used to complain about how bad the picture was on our TV. Turns out, it was my eyes. I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to the Mitsubishi Corporation for all the rotten things I said about their fine product. So sorry, honorable electronics giant!
• It's even more abundantly clear that I should listen to my wife. She's been telling me for years that I needed glasses. Me so sorry, honorable spouse!
• I don't know if there's any relation between hearing and vision, but I swear to God, my hearing seems to have improved, but you'd have to verify that with my wife. She'd probably tell you that anything would be an improvement.
• I can't tell you how many people say I look smarter with glasses. I'm not quite sure how to take this. When my kids said it, I thought it was cute, but I've had several people at work tell me the same thing. Did they think I was a total dolt before? Maybe I was and the glasses did make me smarter. Had I known about this phenomenon years ago, I would've donned glasses just for the IQ effect. Maybe I could've gone to Harvard. Alas.......
• Finally, you should be happy that as a fellow motorist, I can now actually see other cars on the road. I hope the end result of this whole deal is that the world is now a safer place and that all of you see a reduction in your insurance premiums.

Here's looking at you, kid! ;-)