Betty, an acquaintance of mine, has had terrible luck with roommates. Guilberto was her most recent housemate who was always promising to pay the rent "tomorrow." She figured she'd never see any cash when his friends kept calling for him and would disclose to Betty the vast amounts of money he owed them. She had a glimmer of hope one day when he pulled up in a new car and paid her half of the rent. When the police came to the house looking for him and started asking Betty questions about his new car, she started to become suspicious. When he came home, she asked him if the car was stolen. He said it wasn't but left shortly thereafter. Three weeks latter when he hadn't yet come home, she piled all his belongings on the carport and changed the locks. He hasn't been seen since.

One of Betty's co-workers daughter needed a place to live and Betty thought that this would certainly be a stable roommate. How could she go wrong when her co-worker seemed so "normal?" When the girl came to look at the house, Betty informed her that she was a smoker and asked if it would be a problem. "I only smoke in my office with the door closed," she said.

"That won't be a problem at all."

On the day the girl moved in, Betty went into the office to smoke a cigarette. She emerged to find the girl curled up in a fetal position and crying in the corner of the living room. Betty asked what was wrong.

"Something has to be done. I can't live here if you're going to smoke."

"I told you I was a smoker before you moved in. You said it wasn't a problem."

"You are going to have to quit."

"No I'm not."

The girl hadn't even been unpacked for an hour when she began moving out. She attempted to sue Betty for breach of contract since she had already paid a months rent but since Betty had made her sign a document stating that any rent paid was nonrefundable, she didn't have much of a case. On the court date, the girl failed to appear and the judge charged her with contempt of court.

Betty was standing in line at a fast food restaurant when the woman behind her struck up a conversation. During the course of the discussion, the woman mentioned that she was looking for a place to live and Betty mentioned that she was looking for a roommate. Betty should have known better since the woman was talking nonstop.

So the woman shows up a Betty's to look the place over. As Betty is showing the house, a guy calls and says he is answering an ad she had placed for a roommate. He asked if he can come over and look at the place "right now" and Betty obliges. The woman is still there talking when the guy arrives so Betty talks to both of them about the house.

Let me just take a moment to note that Betty owns two dogs who have the run of the house. This guy is standing there and the dogs are running and playing throughout the house when he asks, "Do you have a problem with animals?"

As the woman continues talking, Betty looks at the dogs as they run past her and says, "No. Do you have a pet?"

"No," answered the man. "Are you prejudiced or opposed to having parties?"

"I'm not prejudiced and it depends on what kind of party you are talking about."

Without answering and with the woman still talking, the guy leaves abruptly. Five minutes after the guy leaves, the phone rings. It's the guy who says, "I apologize for leaving so suddenly but I picked up on a few things while I was there."

"What are you talking about?"

"You know; the tension in the air. I know you know what I mean."

"Actually, I have no clue as to what you are talking about."

"I could tell that you're attracted to me."

"No I'm not."

"Well, I'm attracted to you so I don't think it would be a good idea for us to live together."

"Don't worry. I'm not going to let you live here. Please stay away from my property."

"Would you like to go out sometime?"

"I don't think so. Please don't call here again."

Betty hung up the phone and despite the fact that the woman was still talking and hadn't stopped talking since she had arrived, decided to let her live in the house because she:

A. was there,
B. wrote a check for rent and,
C. didn't hit on her.

Betty's description of this woman was, "She wakes up talking." Betty was relaxing on the couch one afternoon when she heard her roommate coming through the door. Betty pretended to be asleep to avoid a one-sided conversation. The woman sits down on the coffee table and swings her legs in between the couch and the coffee table. She leans over and gets within inches of Betty's face. "Betty? Betty? Are you sleeping? Betty are you sleeping? Betty? Betty? Are you sleeping Betty? Are you sleeping Betty? Betty are you sleeping?

"Not anymore."

"Well, you look sleepy. You ought to get up and go to bed."

Betty decided to write up a talking policy. There would be a fifty word per hour maximum and any unused words do not roll over into the next hour. Roaming charges apply. There will be a charge of one dollar per word over fifty words in any given hour. Written notes and messages left on the answering machine count towards the fifty words per hour.

I asked Betty why she didn't just get a boyfriend, get married and forgo the roommate situation. She replied, "I don't have much luck there either. My last boyfriend left because he discovered he was gay. The one before that beat me up and rather than go to court over it, he moved to Mexico and the one before that was a drug abuser who is living in the woods somewhere to avoid prosecution."

The last time I spoke with Betty she told me that she was digging six-foot deep hole in her backyard. When I asked her why she replied, "That way if I don't like a roommate I can just shoot him and be done with it."

My wife visited Betty a while back and didn't notice any holes in the backyard. I guess she still isn't having very good luck with roommates.

My brother, a talented jazz musician, had asked me to photograph him during one of his performances. My four-year-old son accompanied me to the coffeehouse where my brother played his guitar. When we arrived, my sibling had been playing for a while already and when he had finished the first tune we heard, my son excitedly spoke up, "You play music just like me!"

My brother laughed and I explained to him that my son was referring to a toy keyboard that he occasionally played. "Do I play just like him?" my brother asked.

"I think you've had a little more practice," I replied.

After each piece, my son would inquire, "Are you done yet?"

My brother would laugh and tell him, "Not quite yet."

As I took pictures, my son became a typical restless four-year-old. At first he stayed beside me but soon I had to ask him not to run or climb on furniture. It was hard for him not to climb or run but, all in all, he did really well considering his age.

I took my last photograph and said goodbye to my brother. As we left the building, my son turned to me and commented, "I had fun playing music tonight." This was said as if he had been the one on stage playing.

"I am very proud of you for being so good tonight," I told him.

"I wasn't good."

"Yes you were. I thought you were very good."

"No I wasn't. I ran and I climbed."

"Yes but you stopped when I told you to stop and that's being good."

"I didn't want to be good though."

Did I just hear what I thought I just heard? "What?"

"I didn't want to be good."

"You wanted to run and climb?"

"Yes."

"Sometimes it's hard being good, isn't it?"

"Yes."

"You know what?"

"What."

"Sometimes it's hard for Daddy to be good too and I'm very proud of you for being good even though you didn't want to be good."

"I'm proud of you too Daddy."

Think chocolate is harmless? A study performed by a team of freshman cosmetology students has determined that chocolate is bad for human consumption. Laboratory experiments involving rats have shown evidence that the decadent delight can cause severe health problems and even death.

"The results of our research are shocking," said Mildred Sisk, A Senior Washroom Attendant for the Institute of Advanced Cosmetology Science. "We took five hundred rats and dunked them in a vat of chocolate for thirty minutes. Surprisingly, not even one survived. If chocolate does this to rats, imagine what would do to a human body."

Ms. Sisk's theory has been challenged by some in the scientific community who claim that, more than likely, the cause of death for the rats was drowning. "Those folks don't know anything. They're just jealous because they didn't thing of it first," stated Ms. Sisk. "They weren't there and didn't see what I saw. Besides, when humans eat chocolate, it coats the inside of the body, so in reality, the body is suffocating from the inside out."

Further testing is scheduled using live chickens.

On many of the projects that I have recently worked on, people have told me to, "Think outside of the box." First of all, I'd like to know what box they are referring to. Second, why do they assume I'm inside of a box? Third, if I am inside a box how did I get there? I don't remember climbing into it nor do I remember being put into one. If I was, it was against my will and without my knowledge.

It hasn't restricted my breathing. The air doesn't even appear to be stale. If I am inside a box it doesn't seem to limit my mobility. As I move around, I'm not kicking the sides so it would seem that it is a rather large box. As a matter of fact, I have no recollection of ever having run into the sides. It would seem to me that the box is large enough for me to do all the thinking I need to do.

Assuming that I am in a box, I have no experience thinking outside of it and since I have done pretty well so far, I'm not sure that I want to do any thinking outside of the box. How do I know if I'm qualified to think outside of the box and if I am, who determines my qualifications? What qualifies a person to tell me that I should think outside of the box? Do these people think outside of the box? Do these people even see the box? Do these people know what they are talking about?

If the new thing is to think outside of the box, shouldn't someone stay in the box to do some thinking? I mean, if everybody is doing their thinking outside of the box, who is minding the box? When I have an empty box lying around, it generally gets thrown away. Do we really want to risk losing the box where most of us have done our thinking for most of our lives?

If I go outside the box, can I get back in? Can someone guarantee that if I don't like thinking outside of the box that I can get back in? Before we tackle this question perhaps we should discuss how to get out of the box to begin with. Is there a door? I'd prefer an escalator if possible.

I guess when people tell me to "Think outside of the box," I'll just keep thinking inside the box. How will they tell the difference. Pretty soon everybody will be thinking outside the box and the new thing will be to think inside the box. When it is, I'll be ready. I'll already be there.