'Tis the season . . .

It is now the Christmas season, and once again we can see poor little Ralphie, longing for a BB gun. I remember it well, myself. When I was about nine years old, I, like Ralphie, wanted a BB gun. More than anything.

I made sure that everyone with any capability, authority or influence around me knew that a BB gun was necessary to fulfill my destiny. And, having been raised that way, I prayed to the all knowing and all powerful Big Guy upstairs, to please see to it that the grownups would furnish me with a BB gun. And, had the opportunity presented itself at the time, I would have happily traded away all future chances of salvation in the afterlife, if the devil below would just get me a damn BB gun.

There was no BB gun under the tree that year.

However, years later, when I was sixteen and had long, long before lost hope and lost interest in BB guns, guess what? I got a BB gun for Christmas.

Thanks Dad.

Now if either the Man above or the Devil below had anything to do Dad getting me a BB gun for Christmas when I was sixteen, I can't say, but if either of them did I am obliged to observe that there is something lacking in the reliability and efficiency, and timeliness, with which wishes are granted.

By the time I got the BB gun I had discovered girls, and with all the adolescent hormones sloshing around in my body, my perpetual wish from then and for very many years later had damn little to do with BB guns. At sixteen, I was certain that BB guns wouldn't work with girls. Maybe a new red, Ford convertible . . . but not a BB gun.

So, once again, I prayed, although I was a little more circumspect in the prayerful language used to describe who, I mean what, I needed.

So did I get laid that year? I did not.

Now, years later, experiences like the foregoing and others similar have taught me that it is the wanting that is the problem. If you don't want anything in particular, you certainly won't be disappointed.

And you just might get a BB gun.