Life: One Odd Ride

My friend Burro Joe brought something to my attention today which was quite disconcerting to me. For several years now, he has annually purchased a Texas hunting license which allows him to legally discharge a firearm with intent to slay wild game as long as it is during the appropriate game season. However, he has not taken the mandatory Texas hunter safety education course which would provide him the knowledge with which to safely discharge a firearm with intent to slay said wild game. This made us both wonder about the flaw in the system that would allow a person to buy the aforementioned hunting license without taking a safety course of inordinate appropriateness.

My pondering of this situation caused me to muse on several other societal oddities which continue to flabbergast me, lo, these 30 years I have been on this planet:

At age 16, you can be trusted to get behind the controls of 800+ pounds of dangerous fiberglass and steel and drive as many fellow teens as you can cram in this instrument of death to the skating rink (or wherever 16 year olds are going these days) but you can’t be trusted to select the next president of our great United States of America…

However, at age 18, you can be trusted to select the next president of our great country, but you can’t be trusted to choose whether or not to partake of an alcoholic beverage. It would seem to me the proper order would be learn to make wise decisions about alcohol while at home, and then learn to make wise decisions about driving, and finally learn to make wise decisions about the future leaders of this country. I may be way off here but…

Type “A” personalities are usually the worst people to be around (I know because I’m one of them) yet we assign them the first letter in the alphabet, which is usually reserved for designating the best things in life. Grade A beef, A’s in mathematics, etc. Type “A’s” ought to be assigned “Z”…

Allegedly, the checker at your local grocery store is highly trained in grocery checking proficiency, yet most people can go through the self check out line with the same amount of items and be done in half the time…

When I file quarterly sales taxes for my wife’s business with the Texas Comptroller, if I file and pay online (which saves them from having to mail me 10 pages of forms at their expense) I am assessed a $1.00 convenience fee for doing so. Correct me if I am wrong but they get their money faster, don’t have to send me forms, and it takes me just as much time to file either way yet I owe them a dollar for saving them time and money. What’s wrong with this picture…

There are, I’m sure, many more oddities in life such as these but I’ll save them for another day. I’m more concerned right now about Burro Joe, running around, blasting anything that moves with his shotgun without the proper safety education. We all better take cover…I’m sure he’s not the only one. Until next time…