The Woman Who Shares My Name instructed me that this week’s column was to be about positive things. She says she is tired of bad news and thought you felt the same way. “Surely, you can find some positive things to write about,” she said, “and temporarily take people’s minds off all the terrible things going on in the world. I think your readers would appreciate that.”

I thanked her for her suggestions and said I would give them serious consideration sometime in the future. However, I said, my loyal readers are eagerly awaiting my in-depth analysis of current events because I know a lot about a lot of stuff. Plus, there is the fact that no one can tell me what to write. I hinted strongly that she may have missed class the day we talked about the U.S. Constitution, including the First Amendment and the guarantee of my right of free expression.

She thanked me for reminding her once again how smart I am and hinted strongly that I may have missed the part in the wedding ceremony where the minister talked about not lecturing her on the U. S. Constitution — I truly don’t remember that — and that she was a member of the high school Honor Society and I wasn’t and if I didn’t do what she said, she would be more than willing to tell everybody I didn’t learn to tie my shoes until my senior year. She’s good.

I told her now that she had given me some better insight into her thinking, I felt certain we could work something out and wondered if she has some thoughts to share on what she deemed to be positive news. For example, I consider getting a rise out of the humor-impaired as a positive. I know I positively enjoy jerking their chains.

I’m not exactly sure who has less of a sense of humor — liberal weenies who see nothing wrong with anybody crossing our borders whenever they choose, even if it includes your occasional terrorist; or Bible thumpers who believe toting a gun to church is the Christian thing to do. But I am positive that I will hear from some of them.

She said that wasn’t exactly what she had in mind. She said maybe I could write something about animals. Everybody loves to read about animals. I told her that I love animals, too, especially coyotes because given half a chance they will eat yappy little bug-eyed dogs that bark all the time. I thought that was a positive thing. She said to keep going.
I told her I had read that kudzu is heading north and had gotten as far as Ohio and had even made it across the Great Lakes to Canada. I consider this positive news on several levels. We sure don’t need any more kudzu around here, so why not share it with our friends north of the Mason-Dixon Line? This way they won’t have to look at all their empty rusted buildings in the two months when it is not snowing there because they will be covered in kudzu. That will then give locals more time to rush to the library and check out a book entitled, “The Best of Northern Cuisine.” It’s an easy read. Less than a page. The look she gave me was not very positive.

Moving right along, I told her that I was positive that the City of Atlanta, aka, Malfunction Junction, was the only city in America with a Water Department that just discovered it was missing an $80,000 road scraper and 10,000 water meters. Ever try to steal a road-scraping machine or stick 10,000 water meters down your britches and not rouse suspicion? That’s not as easy as somebody made it look. Only in Atlanta.

I could tell by now that the Woman Who Shares My Name regretted ever having brought up the idea. She reluctantly agreed that perhaps we should stick to what we each do best. Therefore, I will continue to write snarky columns and she will continue to try and trick me into eating broccoli.

I’m glad I can get back to what I do best. If I was all sweetness-and-light, I might not get reader responses like one recently that said, “Can’t believe you felt the need to waste your, and therefore my, time on your column today. What a pompous (fill in the blank) you are!” C’mon. You wouldn’t want me any other way. Of that, I am positive.

You can reach Dick Yarbrough at yarb2400@bellsouth.net; at P.O. Box 725373, Atlanta, Georgia 31139; online at dickyarbrough.com or on Facebook at Facebook.com/dickyarb.