Just when you thought it was safe to read the paper again!

I sat down today to write the last edition of Almost Clever. Suddenly life got very busy and I’ve been missing more deadlines than I’ve made lately and, worse, in my haste to get a column turned in on time the quality of my writing has started to slip a bit.

I know that’s true because by daughter told me the other day, “Hey Dad, your columns really suck lately and, oh by the way, here’s a word for you P-U-N-C-T-U-A-T-I-O-N; look it up.”

She’s a sensitive girl.

The thing is that I recently realized that Sandra had no intentions of giving up her chance to study art in Europe to support my career as a writer/consultant. She finally looked up “writer/consultant” in the dictionary and it said, “see also, unemployed.”

Just because she served on active duty for six straight years fighting the International War on Terror while I was…uummm…I was…well, I was not doing that so she thinks that it’s my turn to get a job and actually support us. 

I almost had the gall to argue with her, but then I remembered that she was an actual warrior and I was…well I was a writer/consultant, so I got a job.

The transition from being a professional slacker and a writer/consultant to being employed is pretty extreme. It turns out that, in return for paying me regularly, employers expect me to set my alarm every weekday and some weekends so that I show up on time to be…you know…productive for a whole day.

This whole thing is new to me but I think that’s the gist of it, in exchange for my time and productivity they pay me; and if I don’t do it my wife will cut me off completely. By “cutting me off” I mean she would not pay for me to follow her around the world and play while she restores great works of art…I know, it’s incredibly harsh but I’m pretty sure she means it!

I’ve been so overwhelmed with this new job that I have not taken the time to sit down and write a column for the last several weeks. In fact, the more I thought about it, I convinced myself that I couldn’t continue to be almost clever for an hour or so every week, maintain a full time job and remain the stress resistant slacker that I have grown accustomed to seeing in my mirror every morning.

I sent an email declaring my intention to hang up the ol’ keyboard and this was meant to be the farewell edition of Almost Clever; but when I sat down to write my last column I couldn’t do it. Everything I wrote just seemed wrong to me; I deleted about a dozen half written columns before I realized I couldn’t write a farewell column because I’m not done!

I’ve been writing this column so long that it’s become a part of my life. It’s fun to imagine that there are people out there who actually read this stuff every week and I enjoy trying to come up with new ways to almost make them smile every week.

I just found out that I won another national award for doing this and, honestly, I love it. It’s cool that in a world where there is more than enough bad news to go around, I get to be the guy who writes about things that make us laugh. I get to point out the humor that is part of life from raising kids to fighting cancer. I’m not ready to give that up quite yet.

If I’m too busy to take an hour or two each week to look for something funny going on in the world or in my own life, I probably need to re-examine my lifestyle. If I could write a column while I was fighting cancer or going through couple’s therapy; I can write a column while I’m working in Florida.

Oh, did I mention that this job I’m struggling to endure comes with an office and a view of the waterfront in downtown Pensacola? I guess it’s not all that bad and I know that I can manage my time well enough to continue to share a little meaningless gibberish with you each week.

Oh, one more thing, I have next weekend off so I might even look into that punctuation thing and see if there’s anything to it….