John R Purcell

I happen to be one of those people who can eat most things and not put on any extra weight and there is no reason for me to be on a weight controlling diet. However, my loving wife feels that she must limit her food intake so that she does not gain any extra pounds and has gone on a diet which , unfortunately, means that I am also on that diet. I call it "The Half Diet".

Anyone who has ever made a purchase on line or at a local retailer has probably been asked to agree to answer a few questions in a survey to determine if the customer was satisfied with the product and the service they received. Of course they would like all the answers to be very favorable and the questions are worded to obtain the most favorable responses.

The following is a satirical example of a typical customer survey.

Dear Mr. Arnold Fitzhugh,

An early morning walk before the days activities begin is usually uneventful. There are few cars or trucks on the road and the only other people you see are other walkers, some walking their dogs , or joggers. One morning an event occurred that was out of the ordinary. I was walking down a road which had four lanes of traffic and a median in the center. There was no traffic on the road at this early hour except for an old model minivan approaching toward me on the other side of the median and continuing on past me.

The other day at lunch I bit on something hard which turned out to be a piece of a tooth that had broken off. When I checked my teeth in a mirror I saw that it had come from one on the left side of the upper jaw and was visible when I smiled. Although I am not one to smile often, it would be embarrassing to appear in public and display my gap tooth smile, so a visit to the dentist was quickly arranged. At the dentists office it was determined that it would be necessary to remove some of the broken tooth and install a crown, an artificial tooth, in place of it.

Usually the news on television and in the daily newspapers is full of the most shocking and depressing events that are taking place everywhere. When the local television stations break into a news program with the announcement, "This Just In", it will probably be a report about some violent crime or a disaster of some kind. Though all of this is very depressing, the news stories that bother me the most are those about the abuse and cruel treatment of animals.

These days when mail can be sent and received electronically in seconds with computers, it is rare to receive a hand written personal letter the old fashioned way, delivered to your mailbox. So it was a surprise to Mr. Persky when he found one in his box with his name on it in large , printed letters, but with no address or stamp, obviously left by someone other than the mailman. When he opened it he found a sheet of lined notebook paper with hand printed lettering typical of a child's writing, and when he saw the name of the sender, he knew who sent it.