gnats

I went for a jog the other day, and was surprised to run through several clouds of gnats. This is obviously not a huge deal, but it is a bit annoying to have little bugs plunging into your mouth and eyes. However, what I thought was strange, is that this particular day, was the first warm day we had had in a little while. When it is cold out, there are not any bugs to speak of. But the first day that it had warmed up, they were out in numbers.

I'm just curious what gnats do while it's cold. Where are they all hiding? Do they just sit somewhere till it gets warm enough to fly into peoples' eyes?? They are like a bunch of kamikaze's, waiting for it to warm up so they can die in order to slightly irritate someone. I wouldn't mind sitting down with the king of the gnats, and explaining that these kamikaze deaths are not necessarily the honorable deaths that they think they are.

"How are you doing mr. gnat??"
- I'm doin alright, thanks...how can I help you??
"Well, I've noticed that your followers seem to try and fly into people's eyes and mouths."
- Ahh...yes, I was wondering when this was going to come up. It is the nature of war my son...we have many that are willing to die in honor, to protect ourselves, and our way of life.
"To be frank with you, people are not really at war with gnats...we just can't see you and accidentally walk into you....We would rather stay away from you honestly. Furthermore...about the honorable deaths you speak of...they don't really achieve very much at all...it just kind of irritates us for a minute till we get the dead body out of our eye or mouth."
- I see...you understand why this is very disturbing news to me....we will now need many more soldiers willing to die to slay our enemy.
"No...no, actually that wasn't my point. I don't think you will be able to kill any humans that way...you are just sacrificing gnats for nothing.
- That is your opinion...as soon as the weather warms up permanently...we will be out in full force, defending ourselves!! (flies out of the room)


Well that didn't go as planned. Sorry everyone, I may have just made our relationship with the gnats much, much worse.


Happy New Year, and beware of the gnats.

miracle

I had finished watching the panthers beat the bucs on monday night football, and I was just quietly sitting at my desk checking my email, espn.com, etc...when I glanced down and saw a bottle cap sitting on the ground by my left foot. I have never been known to be the neatest person in the world, but I have been keeping my room relatively clean, so I decided to pick it up. But ironically, I didn't feel like walking to the trash can, so I just placed it next to my computer.

A few minutes later, I felt extremely spontaneous, and decided to do something crazy.....So I picked up the bottle cap, and flicked it up into the air with my thumb. The act seemed to take place in slow motion, and it felt as if I was able to focus in on every rotation of the violently spinning piece of metal as it traveled upwards. It smacked straight into the ceiling above my head, then went off course towards the lamp. My eyes stayed locked on the cap, as it bounced off the lamp and started plummeting towards the carpet. I dived out of my chair, arm fully extended, and felt the cool metal land neatly in my hand before my fingers wrapped themselves around it.

I was so excited that I had executed this miracle of a catch, that I jumped to my feet with my arms raised in celebration. However, in doing so, I stubbed my toe on the way up, tripped on my book bag, and fell over my chair, finally ending up back on the floor slightly demoralized and in quite a bit of pain.

I just decided to lay there for a minute or so as I tried to take deep breaths to deal with the pain shooting through my toe. What had seemingly been a time of celebration of my coordination and athleticism, had quickly turned into pitiful display of clumsiness.

It was then that I started wondering why I felt the need to jump up, arms raised, to celebrate alone in my room, for catching a bottle cap that I had flicked into the air about 5 feet above my head...

Therefore I am not super-proud of my attempt at a celebration following my catch, nor am I proud of quickly tumbling back to the ground.....but honestly, it was a pretty amazing catch.