Truthful Tuesday

Truthful Tuesday — Two Wishes

Fandango19 Comments

Di, of Pensitivity101, is our host for Truthful Tuesday. This week Di wants to know:

By some weird twist of fate, you are given two wishes. What would you wish for?

One of my two wishes would be very personal. The other would be very political.

My first wish would be to go back exactly two months from today and rethink going out on a ladder to clean out my gutters during a brief lull in the downpours we had been experiencing at the time. If I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have fallen off the ladder and fractured my right hip and broken my right arm at the shoulder. I wouldn’t have had emergency partial hip replacement surgery, and I wouldn’t have had to be spending the first six months of 2023 going through physical therapy and rehabilitation.

My second wish would be for a return to sanity and common sense, and a withdrawal from extremism within the Republican Party and conservative politics in the United States before our American democracy is destroyed.

Truthful Tuesday — Corporal Punishment

Fandango7 Comments

Di, of Pensitivity101, is our host for Truthful Tuesday. This week Di wants to know:

What are your thoughts on the saying, “Spare the Rod, Spoil the Child”?

I admit that when my children were young, I would occasionally spank them. I don’t know who felt worse afterwards, the kid or me. I tried to limit spankings to the most egregious offenses, when they did something that could have harmed themselves or others. But there were other times when my patience with them had worn thin and something they did or said triggered a reaction in me that resulted in a spanking. I always felt very guilty when that happened, as it was more about me than about them.

I don’t know whether or not I’d characterize my kids as having been spoiled. I know my wife did everything we could, aside from the aforementioned occasional spankings, to give them what we thought they needed to grow into well-adjusted, happy, productive adults. We always put them first.

But fortunately, as I look back as objectively as possible on their lives (they both are in their forties), I don’t believe either was the child that Di described as “brats who got everything they wanted when they wanted it or cried and whined when they didn’t get it.”

Truthful Tuesday — Rich and Famous

Fandango7 Comments

Di, of Pensitivity101, is our host for Truthful Tuesday. This week Di wants to know:

Would you like to be famous? And if so, what for?

When I was much younger, I thought being a movie star, a successful recording artist, a renowned author, or a world-class athlete would be a kick. But I see what fame can do to people, especially in the age of the internet, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. I wouldn’t want my personal and private life — everything I say or do — to be exposed.

Bottom line, I would prefer to be rich and anonymous over rich and famous. But I’m okay with the fact that I am neither rich nor famous. I can happily live my life in peace, quiet, and anonymity.

Fibbing Friday — Handy Dandy Definitions

Fandango11 Comments

Di (aka Pensitivity101) hosts Fibbing Friday, a silly little exercise where we are to write a post with our answers to the ten questions below. But as the title suggests, truth is not an option. The idea is to fib a little, a lot, tell whoppers, be inventive, silly, or even outrageous, in our responses. For this week’s Fibbing Friday, Di wants to know what these words mean.

1. Silicone — an ice cream cone made from edible Silly Putty.
2. Fluff — the little threads and stuff you pull out of your bellybutton.
3. Loofah — a type of head covering worn by tribe elders in certain tribes at some islands in the South Pacific.
4. Caddy — a mean, nasty, hurtful person who speaks ill of others.
5. Pedantic — a pedal assist setting on an electric bicycle.
6. Tangent — a sun worshiping man who has a deep, bronze, year round tan.
7. Muffler — a gag tied around someone’s mouth to keep them from making any sounds.
8. Calamity — a type of mollusk found in the cold waters around Alaska that is served as a delicacy at finer restaurants around the world. If not properly prepared, however, they can be poisonous and eating them would be calamitous.
9. Archive — a beehive in the shape of an arc that is unique to a breed of bees known as the Noah bee.
10. Fortify — the name for the number halfway between 40 and 50 (i.e., 45).

Truthful Tuesday — A Favor

Fandango9 Comments

Di, of Pensitivity101, is our host for Truthful Tuesday. This week Di wants to know:

If someone offered you a considerable amount of money for doing them a favor, would you take it?

My short answer is probably not.

First of all, if the person asking me to do them a favor was a good friend or close family member, there would be no need for them to offer me a “considerable amount of money.” I’d do it for free as long as the favor wasn’t illegal, unethical, or immoral. I might ask them to cover my out of pocket expenses if there were any.

Second of all, I believe in the old adage that says, “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Why would someone who is not someone I know very well offer me a considerable amount of money for doing them a favor if the “favor” was on the up and up? That would seem fishy to me and I’d have a lot of questions that would need to be answered before I’d even consider it.

And, finally, if a total stranger was making that offer, fuhgeddaboudit.