The Season of Giving and Taking

Posted on November 28, 2017 by Sheila Moss

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Here it is, almost Christmas. Probably by now you are overcome with Christmas spirit; feeling generous, decorating your tree, and finishing up some last minute shopping before wrapping your gifts.

We only hope that you have not made a charitable contribution to your local criminal element. Yes, it is Christmas for crooks too, and there is nothing they enjoy more than busy, crowded, holidays when they have so many additional opportunities to practice their trade.

Here are a few tips if you want to help out these ambitious entrepreneurs and assure they have an successful holiday season:

When shopping, park your car in a dark area away from buildings or lights make it more accessible to them. After all, it’s Christmas. Have a heart! There is nothing a thief likes better than a dark area where he won’t be seen or noticed while practicing his craft.

Cell phones, purses, and GPS’s make excellent gifts for thieves and unlike your ungrateful relatives, they won’t even mind that they are pre-used. Criminals will probably suspect that you may be away from the car for while shopping. Making a quick grab when opportunity knocks can absolutely make their day.

Small shopping areas are even better places to give away your valuables than large shopping malls where there may be security guards. Avoid malls and help a dishonest outlaw make a living. You might even leave your door unlocked since you are in such a hurry to shop. Be aware that a thief must do his shopping outside while you are shopping inside.

If you make it home without donating your purchases to a worthwhile culprit, wrap all your gifts and place them under the tree in front of the window where they can be see from outside. While you are out of the house enjoying other holiday activities, industrious burglars can procure the gifts that are already wrapped for giving and thus assure their own family of a happy holiday.

If you prefer donating cash instead of goods, carry large amounts of money and never pay with debit or credit cards. Encourage timid pickpockets by leaving a purse dangling on your shoulder for easy snatching or by putting your wallet in a visible back pocket instead of an inside pocket. Cash cannot be traced or cancelled and pickpockets will greatly appreciate your thoughtfulness.

If a good con artist sees nothing worth taking, perhaps he will come to your door asking for a donation for a needy charity knowing that you will be in an especially generous mood at this time of the year. Don’t embarrass him by asking for identification or refusing to donate except to charities you know and trust. Give generously and help a con guy in need.

Remember, this is the time of year to support the low life of our society. By paying attention to carelessness, you can assure that the scum of the earth will not go without a Merry Christmas.

Please give generously and always remember, you too can be a victim of crime.

Copyright 2003 Sheila Moss
Posted in Holidays, Humor, Shopping | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Trimming the Tree

Posted on November 25, 2017 by Sheila Moss

At my house, my grandson always wanted to be included in anything to do with Christmas. One of his favorite activities was helping to trim the Christmas tree. Including children in holiday festivities helps to create traditions and gives them childhood memories.

Here are some helpful suggestions on how to trim a Christmas tree so that children can be a part of your Christmas celebration.

Bring the artificial tree down from the attic. Remove the child from the top of the box and warn him about the dangers of climbing. Take out the limbs and place them in piles according to their size. Remove the limbs that the child puts in the wrong piles.

Let the child hand you the branches as you insert them into the tree trunk. Remove the limbs that the child inserted in the wrong place while you were busy. Warn the child that the tree may turn over if the branches are not evenly placed. Stand the tree back up and be certain that the child was not injured.

String colorful lights around the tree, starting at the top and winding down around the tree. Remove the lights that are wound around the child. Drape a garland or some bright ribbon around the tree before adding the ornaments. Throw away any ornaments that the child breaks while you are busy draping the garland.

Plug in the lights. Plug in the lights again and warn the child about the dangers of pulling electric plugs out.  Show the child how to hang ornaments on the tree. Carefully re-hang any ornaments that fall off. This will be most of them. All the ornaments will be placed on the bottom branches by the child. Resist the urge to move them.

Lift the child up and allow him to place the angel at the top of the tree. Have the child check the ornament boxes to see if they are empty while you fix the lopsided angel. Remove the child from the empty Christmas tree box. Return the empty boxes to the attic. Re-plug the lights.

Look for the missing child until you realize there is only one place left. Go to attic and remove the child from the empty Christmas tree box.

Sweep up the glass from the antique ornaments that were broken during decorating. Warn the child about the dangers of handling broken glass. Put a band-aid on your injured finger. Re-plug the lights again and remind the child that Santa is watching.

Admire the tree, even though all the ornaments are on the bottom branches, the lights are unplugged, and the angel is slightly lopsided.

Copyright 2002 Sheila Moss
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Too Much Thanksgiving?

Posted on November 22, 2017 by Sheila Moss

 

 

  • You can’t believe you spent 10 hours cooking it and they ate it in 10 minutes.
  • You check your popup timer to see if it’s really over.
  • When you hear the word leftovers, you call 911.
  • You lock the door so your relatives don’t come back.
  • Your turkey was generic, but guests “Can’t believe it’s not Butterball.”
  • Your oven is passing a petition against you.
  • Your grocery store sends you fan mail instead of coupons.
  • You received a new smoke detector as a hostess gift.
  • You haven’t slept since you bought the turkey.
  • You fell asleep after Thanksgiving with your apron on.
  • You forgot to baste the turkey but it promised not to tell.
  • You had pumpkin pie for breakfast.
  • Your dishwasher is having hot flashes.
  • You can’t open the refrigerator because leftovers will fall out.
  • You have re-occurring flash-backs of eating too much.
  • You would like to jog it off, but you can’t bend over to put on your jogging shoes.
  • You buy a lifetime supply of paper plates and swear you’ll never wash dishes again.
  • You make a donation to Save the Turkeys and become a vegan.
  • Your garbage disposer doesn’t want any more leftovers either.
  • You wonder if Thanksgiving is actually a holiday invented by supermarkets.
  • You are grateful that no one has invented a recipe for chocolate covered turkey (yet).
  • You have to eat without forks because all the silverware is in the dishwasher.
  • You call your leftovers the Butterball Mystery Meat.
  • You eat fast food hamburgers the next day because anything is better than turkey.
  • Thanksgiving is the only time you get to recycle all your good china.
  • You know all the pots fit in the cabinet before, so why don’t they fit now?
  • The stove has gone on strike for better working conditions.
  • The local grocery store wants to adopt you.
  • Your turkey roaster is insured against theft, fire, and explosion.
  • Foodmart now has a lien against your home.
  • You’re so tired, you don’t even mind watching football on TV.
  • Your goal in life is to teach someone else to “do” Thanksgiving.
  • You do not eat for three days because heating up leftovers is too much work.
  • Black Friday is not your idea of the way to work off overeating.
  • You wouldn’t go shopping if they were giving away Toys R Us.
  • You wonder what to do with the turkey bones to keep the trash can from complaining.
  • Your house has been designated a national turkey memorial site.
  • You wonder what they eat for Thanksgiving in Turkey.
  • -Pumpkin scented candles give you a pumpkin scented migraine.
  • You think Black Friday should be called Good Friday because Thanksgiving is over.
  • If they think a turkey can gobble, they should see your family at the table.
  • Amazing how your smoke detector shorted out exactly when the turkey finished cooking.
  • No use crying over spilt gravy, unless you slip and fall in it.
  • If the potatoes boil over, think of it as an excuse to clean the stove.
  • You wonder if it’s possible to have a candied sweet potato hangover.
  • You would appreciate the compliments more if they were not followed by “See ya next year.”
  • Your favorite things are turkey sandwiches, turkey soup and turkey pot pie,
    because they mean Thanksgiving is finished.
  • You’re wondering if the turkey is the turkey or if you are.
  • If you think you are upset by Thanksgiving, consider the turkey.
  • Copyright 2009 Sheila Moss
Posted in Food, Holidays, Humor, Rants | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

How to Cook a Real Turkey

Posted on November 21, 2017 by Sheila Moss

turkey-532962_1280The big day is coming and people everywhere are getting nervous because they have to cook a turkey. Not to worry. Even I, the queen of disaster, can roast a turkey. I’ve been cooking turkeys for years and a turkey is the easiest thing there is to cook. (Yes, really.)

Throw away that fancy cookbook and get down to basics. Don’t even consider the microwave. This is a time for tradition. Assuming you already have an oven, there are basically three more things you will need: a pan, a rack, and a turkey. If you do not want to invest in these basics, forget the cooking and go out.

The Pan: There is no substitute for a good pan. Don’t be fooled by those flimsy aluminum things you will see in the grocery store. They are the short road to disaster. They are difficult to handle when hot and your turkey could end up in the middle of the kitchen floor. Invest in a real pan, the old-fashioned enamel kind is great. It will last forever and ever, and you can will it to your children when you die. Caution: Measure your oven to be sure the pan will fit. I’ve had a few pretty tight squeezes through the years.

The Rack: This is the best-kept secret to turkey success. It will cost only a few dollars to get a rack of some sort for your pan. This keeps the turkey off the bottom of the pan, but more importantly, you can get that heavy bird out of the pan while its hot. If the rack does not have handles, improvise by making lifters out of heavy wire, such as a coat hanger. Be sure it is wired onto the rack tightly and won’t come loose when you lift the turkey out. Gross? Trust me, it works.

The Bird: Turkeys come in two sizes, large and extra large. Large is big enough for your family and a few friends. Resist the temptation to buy the largest turkey you can find. Buy a fresh turkey. (Not the kind with feathers, the non-frozen ones.) Forget those frozen monstrosities. After years of fooling with thawing and chipping out icy turkey giblets frozen in the turkey, it dawned on me: defrosting is not worth the trouble. How often do you cook a turkey? Splurge on the real thing. Fresh turkeys come out moist and delicious, much, much better than the frozen ones.

Stuff your turkey. A turkey is just not the same without stuffing. I won’t go into recipes. Southerners love cornbread stuffing. Some like oyster stuffing. Personally, I like raisins. If you can find that cookbook I told you to throw away, rest assured it will have many suggestions. The boxes of seasoned croutons sold in the grocery stores also work just fine. You can make the stuffing ahead, but refrigerate it in a shallow pan and wait until the big day to stuff your bird. Food poisoning will absolutely ruin your day.

Turkeys take a long time to cook. Get up extra early on the big day. It will take only a short while to stuff the bird, put it in the pan and throw it in the oven. If the lid to your roaster does not fit in the oven, forget it and use aluminum foil. Don’t worry about skewers and all that stuff to hold the stuffed turkey closed. Use a needle and thread and sew that sucker shut. No one will know. When you are half-asleep, you don’t feel like fooling with skewers anyway.

BE SURE THE OVEN IS TURNED ON: You’d be surprised how many folks eat late because they forgot. Get the times and temperature to roast the bird of your choice from that infamous cookbook you are so fond of. Once the bird is in the oven, go back to bed. The smell of a turkey cooking is wonderful to wake up to. A turkey will cook itself. If you really must peek, go ahead, but watch out for hot steam.

Don’t worry. The bird will be wonderful and you will be eating leftovers for weeks to come.

Copyright 1998 Sheila Moss
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A Hysterical History of Thanksgiving

Posted on November 18, 2017 by Sheila Moss

Once upon a time, there were some Puritans that moved from England to Holland. After a while, the Puritans decided they didn’t much like their kids speaking Dutch because the adults only understood English, and also they really hated going Dutch treat. The wooden shoes gave them blisters, and they preferred black shoes with buckles to match their hats and purses.

They called AAA Travel and booked a cruise for 40 to the New World. Unfortunately the Niña, Piñta and Santa María, had already sailed and all that was left was the Mayflower. The cruise line was lousy and the Puritans didn’t like the bar and casino, so they were pretty grumpy by the time they arrived at their destination.

Although they had sailed all the way across the Atlantic, they were too seasick to go on to Virginia. Probably it was all that seafood they ate. They made a compact with the other passengers to boycott seafood, a revolutionary new idea, which gave them the idea of calling themselves Pilgrims.

When the Pilgrims found Plymouth Rock, they liked its name much better than Cape Cod, which sounded fishy. So, they decided to all get off and settle there. They forgot that Plymouth Rock was pretty chilly in winter, however, and they hadn’t packed any insulated underwear. They didn’t like to ski or drink hot buttered rum either.

Thank goodness, the New World had invented baseball and the Indians were playing that season. The Indians felt sorry for the Puritans, who didn’t understand the game. One of the Indians, named Squanto, knew all the cruse line directors and had traveled to England where he learned to “Speaka the English” with only a slight American accent. Squanto took a special interest in the Pilgrims as the ball team was always looking for rookies to recruit.

Squanto taught the Puritans to hunt so they would be able to find their seats in the stadium when it was built, and to grow pumpkins so they could make jack-o-lanterns for Halloween. Squanto also taught them how to make maple syrup — and taught them to grow corn, and  they could use the syrup for making popcorn balls. If it had not been for this sort of help from the friendly Indians, the Pilgrims would never have made it in the New World

The Pilgrims were so happy they decided to have a big bash to celebrate, and they invited all the Indians to come. Since they didn’t have any hot dogs, they ate roasted fowl and venison and pretended it was ballpark franks. They washed it down with cranberry juice cocktail. Actually, this was only a harvest celebration since the Pilgrims always fasted when they gave thanks.

The next year the Indians didn’t make it to the playoffs and the Pilgrims forgot all about celebrating for several years until another winning team came along. Since they had been praying for a winning team, they were very thankful and decided it might be a good idea to celebrate again.

Unfortunately, the Indians had moved to Cleveland and were beginning to be a little aggravated at the Pilgrims for building houses instead of a new stadium. The Pilgrims decided they would become New England Patriots fans and watch football for their celebration.

They liked the combination of turkey and football so well that they did it every year, and it soon became a tradition. Finally, the Continental Congress passed a law that all 13 colonies would celebrate the holiday, and then they promptly adjourned to go to the big game.

Nobody really took Thanksgiving very seriously until some lady wrote about it in “Ladies Home Journal” and President Lincoln, who frequently took ideas for laws from ladies’ magazines, thought it would be a good idea to have a national day of Thanksgiving.

And that is how the Thanksgiving holiday came about. To this very day, we still over indulge on turkey to celebrate and to show our gratitude for football. We no longer invite the Indians; however, since the World Series is over for the year and they are on vacation and wouldn’t come anyhow.

Copyright 2000 Sheila Moss

Written with sincere apologies to the memory of the late, great columnist, Art Buchwald, who satirized the dubious Pilgrims and Thanksgiving story first.

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Rx Operation

Posted on November 12, 2017 by Sheila Moss

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Have you ever suspected your body has betrayed you and had nagging little questions start running through your head? Have you every wonder if you might be really sick? Have you ever considered the possibility that you might need surgery when you’ve never been sick a day in your life – before?

Has that nagging little discomfort now turned into a throb?

Did your friends or family ask if you are feeling okay?

Did your spouse suggest you set up an appointment?

Did the doctor suggested you have some “tests”?

Did you suddenly remember that you have test anxiety?

Did you have to retake your test because you flunked it the first time?

Did the doctor tell you not to worry, which worried you?

Did the receptionist give you literature and say, “Better read this”?

Did anyone ask you questions about your medical insurance coverage?

Does everyone tell you about a friend who had your same symptoms?

Have you finally decided that aspirin cannot cure it?

Did your spouse buy you two new pairs of pajamas just in case?

Do you have a sudden compulsion to make a will?

Did you search the Internet, but couldn’t find your symptoms?

Or, even worse, did you find that these symptoms and that they can be serious?

Did the doctor say you wouldn’t be in a wheelchair long?

If someone asks how you are, are you afraid to tell the truth?

Did everyone tell you not to worry as it probably nothing?

Did you get pre-certified but don’t remember applying?

Does it only hurt when you breathe?

Did the doctor use big words that you can’t remember?

Did you get a second, opinion? A third, forth and fifth?

Do think you would look terrible in a hospital gown?

Is your doctor starting to look just like Dracula?

Can you remember why you thought you might need surgery?

Can you remember your name?

Did you feel fine until you went to the doctor?

Do you wish they would hurry up and get it over with?

Are you only cautious – not afraid?

Did it turn out to be a false alarm?

Was it only your imagination working overtime?

©2003 Sheila Moss
Edited
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Princess of Pop

Posted on November 10, 2017 by Sheila Moss

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I can’t keep up with pop culture. Who is the current big pop star? Let’s see, there was Miley Cyrus, who tried to outdo all the other bad girls and succeeded, and bad boy, Justin Bieber. Taylor Swift is considered a pop singer now. Compared to others, she is a saint and her primary vice, as far as I know, is trashing ex-boyfriends by writing songs about them.

I’m so out of step with reality that I’m still trying to figure out the success of Britney Spears. I sort of ignored her, figuring what’s one more pop star. I lived through Farah Fawcett-Majors. What could be worse that that? Ms. Spears was one of the youngest ever to achieve her level of musical success, which created somewhat of a sensation in the music world.

Britney was pretty enough, a stringy headed blond. But her main attraction, aside from her musical talent, was her controversial belly button. Her belly was displayed on most of her promotional pictures where she favored low-rise pants and crop tops. There is nothing much that can be done with a belly button except to add a belly ring – which she did, in case you care.

Whether or not she has breast implants was another major topic for discussion and speculation on social media for a while. Indeed, Ms. Spears is well endowed and was unusually fond of displaying her attributes. She was a typical adolescent discovering the power of sexuality, you say. But in her case the entire world was watching.

Like other pop stars, she had numerous fan websites created by fans who discuss her with intelligent and articulate statements, such as, “She’s so cool.” or conversely, “She sucks.”  I checked out the browser-crashing official website to see if I could discover any relevant information. Britney’s bio started with her career as a super gymnastic athlete, a career abruptly ended when she lost interest at the ripe old age of 9, just prior to reaching for Olympic stardom – great loss, I’m sure.

She then focused on her singing and dancing talent. She tried out for Mickey Mouse Club, but was “too young.” Someone at Disney slipped a bug in her mama’s ear to go to New York and get an agent, which her mama immediately did. Does the word “stage mother” enter your mind, or is it just me? Anyhow, after being polished and hardened for a few years, she was ready for the big time and got a job as a Disney Mouse for two years until the show folded. After a whole year of (Can you believe this?) “ordinary life,” she struck it big with a record album and the rest is – as they say – history.

As a packaged teen queen, she was exploited and marketed to the hilt. She was worshiped by teens that spend their allowances and lunch money on music downloads. All sorts of products, posters, T-shirts, dolls, records, anything a teenager might want to buy to show their love for Britney was available. The amazing thing was that teen girls loved her pretty face and music while teenage boys thought she would marry them some day — all of them, I guess.

So that’s the story on Britney Spears. With every album, she tried to sound more sexy to titillate teen hormones and get fans to spend more money so she could get even richer. She and mama even wrote a book. After several marriages, several children, and some highly publicized mental health problems, Ms. Spears is trying to prove herself as a mature singer and still performs concerts in Las Vegas and goes on tours.

If she were my kid, I would have told her to wash her face, put some clothes on, and to go to college and wise up. But, I guess when your face is on magazines, your records are at the top of the charts, and you are rolling in the dough, you can do whatever you want. That’s a side benefit of wealth and popularity and the privilege of a princess of pop.

Copyright 2001-2017 Sheila Moss
Revised and Updated
Posted in Entertainment, Humor | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Oh, My Lucky Stars

Posted on November 6, 2017 by Sheila Moss
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Photo by InstaWalli on Unsplash

Lately, I’ve begun to wonder if I broke a mirror, walked under a ladder, my stars are out of alignment or I’ve tangled with a black cat inadvertently. I’ve never been superstitious. I’ve always been believed that a person makes their own luck and has an element of control over their own misfortune. Here lately, however, I seem to have run into a streak of incredible incidents that shakes my belief system and makes me wonder if I need to knock on wood after all. This is all absolutely true, folks, I couldn’t make something like this up.

Bad things happen in threes – at least that is what I’ve always heard from those more superstitious than me. So, where do I begin? I suppose the first thing was the day the car was vandalized. We decided to attend an event at the Gaylord Entertainment Center, get out of the house, hear some music. Good idea – except while were there, the car, parked on a nearby metro parking lot, had a window smashed. Nothing taken, probably the burglar alarm scared the culprit away, but there was still the smashed window and the associated aggravation of getting it repaired. Well, crime happens. Deal with it. Life in the city goes on.

What next? Well, you remember the earthquake, the one in Seattle? I’m in Tennessee, so it doesn’t affect me. Right? Wrong! It so happens my daughter travels in relation to her job. Of all the cities in the United States, where she might have been working, where was she when the earthquake happened? Yep, Seattle. No serious injuries, just minor stuff and shaken up like everyone else. But what a frightening thing – and what a coincidence.

Then the furnace caught on fire – well, almost. Actually, it was relatively minor when all was said and done. I won’t go into all the details again. I’d rather not think about it. The house was full of smoke, and I had to make an emergency call to the furnace company. Could have been much worse – MUCH worse.

That’s three, isn’t it? So why is it that same week I received a call from my sister in St. Louis to tell me my mother was in the hospital? Another source of stress. I tell ya, what else, can happen? But things can always be worse. As long as nobody is dead, and nothing is broken that can’t be fixed, just count your blessings. Right? Maybe it just seems as if everything is going wrong at once. Maybe I do have some control over life. Maybe its just coincidence.

So, I need to get my mind off my troubles and quit worrying about bad luck. I made it to work just fine, no traffic accident or anything. No point in being paranoid! At least that is what I was trying to think while I was waiting to be rescued from the office elevator, which was STUCK on the fifth floor. It had to be pried open with a crowbar and I had to climb out, folks.

Anybody got a rabbit’s foot, a four-leaf clover, a horseshoe, a piece of jade, a lucky penny? Send it all. I’ll take anything at this point. Is that a black cloud following me around, or what?

Copyright 2001 Sheila Moss
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Fall Forward or Fall Back?

Posted on November 4, 2017 by Sheila Moss

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The other morning I had to get up 30 minutes earlier than usual.  Know what? It was dark that early in the morning!  I was shocked to realize that the days are getting shorter.  Until then I hadn’t noticed since it’s usually daylight by the time I wake up.

Now that Daylight Saving Time has ended, we are back on good old standard time.  We will have more daylight in the morning – at least for a while – but afternoons will get shorter and shorter until there is none at all.

Instead of ranting, I’ll just point out a few of the more amusing consequences of moving daylight in the evening to the morning: Let’s see, it’s Spring forward … Fall back… Right?

You reset all the clocks, but your biological clock doesn’t have a reset button.

It’s light in the morning, but depressingly dark in the early evening.  You wonder where the day went, as you sure didn’t see any of it.

You forgot to set the coffeepot timer back, so there was no coffee in the morning – a thrilling discovery in the blinding light of early dawn, standard time.

You spend 15 minutes turning the microwave off and on, trying to figure out how to set the clock.  Finally you decide who cares, microwaves don’t need clocks anyhow, only timers.

You long ago gave up trying to reset the clock in your car and are shocked to see that it has the right time – which goes to show that we don’t really need to change time to be right at least half of the time.

You forgot to turn back the clock at 2:00 am and got to church early.  You were astonished that you were the only one there and wonder if the world ended and you missed it.

The clock on your computer sets itself, nice…. but you forgot and did it again.  Now it looks like 6 o’clock, is actually 7 o’clock, and feels like 8 o’clock.

Some folks arrive for work an hour early because they forgot to fall back. Some folks arrive two hours early because they thought it is Spring back…Fall forward.   You can tell who they are because they are the grumpiest.

You can’t remember whether you changed your wristwatch so you change it again, only to realize that you can’t trust your watch either.  You have to call “time and temperature” to find out what time it is.

The timer is wrong on the TV recorder so you miss half of the movie you were recording.  Of course, you don’t realize this until you’ve already watched the other half.

You should turn clocks 11 hours forward shouldn’t you, instead of one hour back?   That’s what all the clock experts say – but they don’t say how to get the clock to stop chiming.

You decide daylight saving time is actually just a plot to confuse us by making us think we are saving energy. You are glad you don’t have to save any more energy because you don’t have much left to save.

You can’t figure out why you are so tired when you got an extra hour of sleep.  Then you remember that you woke up by your biological clock instead of the time on the alarm clock.

You dream of moving to Arizona and wonder if you would feel better by not participating in this nonsense.  Of course, it could be worse.  In Indiana part of the state participates and part doesn’t.

If I got some of these events backwards, don’t be surprised.  It only goes to show that like everyone else – I’m confused!

Copyright 2004 Sheila Moss
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The Price of Success

Posted on November 3, 2017 by Sheila Moss

 

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Photo by Peter Lloyd on Unsplash

 

I had this great little website that I got built for free!  FREE – my favorite word!  One of those free website places, bless their little hearts, provided me with FREE space for a personal homepage. Now was that nice, or what?

We were so happy – just me, my website and my faithful surfers.  I worked hard to make my little personal website funny, cute and original.  Then I was “discovered” – overnight, almost.

That’s when found out about the price of success.  What I found out is that my “free” website is limited in the amount of traffic allowed.  I am given free space, but the space is limited in size and number of viewers I can have.

Now, I knew that all along, but it was never a problem.  My biggest problem was how to generate hits – not how to prevent them.  Who would have figured in their wildest dreams that a major humor directory would target my little site?

Suddenly I found out that FREE can be very expensive.  Seems when a user has too many “hits” on a “free” site; they are charged for the extra amount of time used.  Panic! My dream became a nightmare.  The more successful I became, the more money it cost me.

What a dilemma.  I wanted hits, didn’t I?  I should be happy, shouldn’t I?   Problem is, I wanted them for free.  FREE – you remember – FREE?  It used to be my favorite word.  Sure, I wanted success, but I wanted it for FREE.

Perhaps I need to explain.  People who build personal websites dream of everyone coming to see them, the world at their doorstep, so to speak.  We are a somewhat vain bunch.   Honestly now, who would put their life online except a prima donna?

Now, as you probably have figured by now, you don’t just throw up a website and achieve overnight fame. For a couple of years people did not come, except in nominal and ordinary numbers.  Then suddenly… THEY CAME…  They ALL came  – they all came at the same time. Like cattle they came to my site – in droves they came.  It was a stampede.  Run for your life.  Head for the hills!  We’ll be stomped into dust in no time!

My days of the freebee ended.  I had to close down my “free” site in an attempt to divert the traffic before I went bankrupt.  It was a rodeo.  I’m only thankful that I had already decided to open a commercial site — just a few days before the giant stampede.  Otherwise, I guess I’d just be a memory by now, a pile of dry bones in the vast dessert of experience.

But, I’ve just read my horoscope. It says I need to get ready to, “receive the good things coming my way from unexpected public opportunities,” and “my creative venture are starred for success.” My horoscope knows.  My astrological sign is Taurus, the Bull.  Just figures it is something to do with cows.  It must be destiny!

So… forward ho! I’m riding off into the sunset on the web to look for more FREE stuff.  Watch those cattle behind me and don’t let them get there first.  If I can just stay ahead of the herd, I know I’ll be okay.  Next time, I’ll check things out more.  Next time I’ll read the fine print.

Can’t get anything for free, you say?  Of course, you can.   My horoscope said so…. And I really, really do need a good website…. for FREE, of course, my favorite word!

©2000 Sheila Moss
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