Do Unto Others

So we heard yet another great sermon the other day, this one on the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you want them to do unto you. This is a very hard thing, but what makes it even harder is when the kind of thing the other wants is different from what I want. For example, if 2 or 3 nights a week, the lovely Carol started pawing at me at 8:30 or so, insisting that I drop whatever dumb thing I'm doing to go to bed with her, desiring me only for my body and ignoring my "finer qualities" (?), well, let's just say I wouldn't mind that at all.

You can be sure, though, that if I did that to her, it would not meet with the same reception.

So we come to Valentine's day, the single day of the year creating a local peak of angst among American husbands and profit among florists. (What about the florist's husband? What if the florist is a husband? As Bob the dinosaur says, I'll leave that to the philosophers.)

Oh, the pressure to come up with something romantic! It makes my head hurt and my bones creak! So yesterday I wrote a poem -- that plus a translation of "Im Zimmer" (Indoors) by Schlaf went into a simple homemade card.

Which is doing unto others as they would have me do unto them. Or something.

I'll let you know how it goes.