Reason to Celebrate

We have reason to celebrate, albeit a small reason. I had set a goal to write a blog post every day, and I was doing great until about post number 320. Then I started working full time (meaning way over 40 hours a week) at a solar company, and I was “too tired” to write. That is both the reason and the excuse for why my writing stopped soon after I started working.

I was exhausted each day and would come home and work at night on my computer trying to set systems in place that would “save time” and make the company “more efficient.” So exhaustion was the reason the blogs stopped. The excuse is that developing new systems is not fun – you encounter computer glitches all day, the project starts running way over budget, things don’t work like they’re supposed to – even after 4,000 tweaks. In other words, the humor gets sucked out of your life like an elephant sucking up a peanut.

Which leads me to the question – why do elephants like peanuts? Maybe it’s the salt. Or maybe they like that crunchy shell, because that peanut completely disappears – they don’t spit out the shell, not any elephant I’ve ever seen. I’m going to ask Google.

I’m back, and glad I took the time to answer this very burning question, which leads to another question, which is, why do we call them “burning” questions? Is it the same reason that whenever my son gets money, it “burns” a hole in his pocket?

I could ask Google that as well, but I’ll save it for another day because I know you’re “burning” to know the answer to the question, “Why do elephants like peanuts?” The answer, according to “Denny” at Yahoo! Answers, is: “Because African elephants risk their lives in dark caves for halite (NaCl) for their daily diet. Now circus elephants love peanuts because they're rich in halite mineral, and they're abundant.”

My English teachers would say, “What’s abundant, the elephants or the peanuts?” even though they knew exactly which one you’re talking about. In fact, they would have passed out a worksheet with this whole answer on it for us to “circle the mistakes” because it is fraught with errors and, might I add, needlessly aggravating. For instance, you are probably scratching your head and saying, “What in the rabbit-assed hell is halite?”

No wait, that’s what my dad would have said. He had all these unusual sayings that seemed to be made up but fit the circumstances so you never questioned what he was talking about.

As to the answer, why couldn’t the jerk (Denny) just tell us, because you and I don’t know what halite is, and we don’t have time to Google it. But no, this is all he said. I knew from high school chemistry that NaCl is sodium chloride, better known to us lay persons as “table salt.” So the answer, apparently, is because elephants need salt and a peanut has it. The imbecile (that’s a great word by the way, and one I don’t get to use nearly enough) went on to say that peanuts originated in Africa, which at least is interesting. I did Google halite and Wikipedia says: ”Halite, commonly known as rock salt, is the mineral form of sodium chloride (NaCl)."

Which leads us (finally) to today’s topic, ie why do we have reason to celebrate? Because I had time and humor enough over the last year to write a few blogs, and I have reached 365! Which is the goal I set, even though it took me about 800 days to do it instead of one year. Break out the champagne! Hmmm, I wonder why we “break out” the champagne. Is it because we...aw heck, let’s just clink those glasses and celebrate!