06E033

It has come to my attention of late of the growing scourge afflicting our fair land (by which I mean Iceland. And by that I mean Iceland is a fair land, not a scourge – but don't ask Greenland to weigh in on THAT! That will open up a whole new kettle of fish, most likely cod).

The scourge to which I referred to in the first paragraph (see first paragraph) is that of the scourge of growing number of scourges.

Scourges seem to be everywhere these days. Can't go two feet without stepping into one And wouldn't you know it, you just bought those shoes!

The Scourge of the the Internet! The Scourge of Halitosis! The Great Scourge of The Inner City. It has gotten so that the very word is rendered meaningless.

Try this: say the word scourge 10 times quickly right now. Scourge, scourge, scourge, scourge, scourge, scourge, scourge, scourge, scourge. Hold on, that's only nine. You can't get out of it that easily. One more time, say it out loud. Yell it from the rooftop. What will this accomplish? Absolutely nothing. Didn't you hear what I said? The word is meaningless!

Now, scourges in and of themselves are not a bad thing. Ivan the Terrible was considered a scourge, and yet his children merely referred to him as Daddy the Grumpy.

Consider a day in the life of Ivan the Terrible:

Ivan the Terrible: “Well, I think I am going out to do some plundering, destroying and

raping. Can I get anybody anything?”

Ivan's son Irving the Misunderstood: “Dad, could you bring back half of Eastern Europe?

While you're at it, throw in Latvia”

No, not Terrible, just Ivan Trying to Be a Good Dad. If that is bad, let me called a scourge too.

My wife, looking over my shoulder (unasked, mind you), points out that Ivan beat his son to death. To this I say, “This is the Scourge of History Fact Checking”! All of this talk of “research” and “truth” just gets in the way of a good story. And don't we all need a good story?

What is a good story? Well, I have always been partial to Goldilocks. To Goldilocks, the bears were the scourge. Living a bear lifestyle in a hut in the woods. Eating porridge. Even worse, eating porridge while standing up like people!

But from the bears' perspective, the scourge was the little girl who takes over the place, breaks everything and sleeps in the wrong bed, and probably hasn't seen her natural hair color in, um, ah, ......

But to return to the point...

It all has to do with your perspective. One man's plague is another man's profit. Don't believe me? A scourge of locusts? Great boon to the locust cleaner-uppers.

So, bring on the scourges. The more the merrier, I say. Or have I just contradicted myself? Oh, there seems to be a plague of that, these days.

Don't get me started.