At dawn on Friday the 13th in the year of our Lord 1307 King Philip IV of France ordered Knights Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay and as many other members of the Order of Knights Templar as could be found in France to all be arrested. They were accused of crimes against God and the Catholic Church like spitting on the cross, indecent kissing, homosexual practices, and worshiping false idols. It was said they had found the mummified head of John the Baptist during their brief tenure as the rulers and defenders of Jerusalem. It was also said they used it in pagan rituals of black magic. The charges were assumed to be false, even by Philip, but through torture numerous Templars were forced to confess, and their confessions were accepted as evidence by Pope Clement. De Molay and the rest of the Templars in France were burned at the stake before the Vatican could mount an appeal (numerous Templars recanted their confessions as soon as they were out of the torture chamber). Templar property throughout France was seized and Philip’s war debts to the Templars were canceled. One suspects that this was a grand financial power-play worthy of a Bush family member. (Oh, no! Did I just say that in a post? Here comes the NSA.)
You know that historians generally do not credit the Templar story as the true origin of the Friday the 13th superstition. I’m not sure why they have trouble making that connection, but historians generally think that anything that is obvious to the common man can’t possibly be true. I suppose they may be right.
So, I sit here at home alone with my beloved family still Spring Breaking in Florida. It is raining outside. It is cool, almost cold. And I am contemplating sour luck.
One of the things I routinely do is work on a collection when I am feeling blue and subject to diabetic depression. It helps to be able to make a little progress in completing a set or something. Well, I made the mistake of trying to do that at Walmart. The Walton family have something in common with King Philip (and the Bush family) (Hackers added that last parenthetic expression, honest, NSA!). They know a little something about mercenary financial evil. Their empire was built on the backs of underpaid workers which they excuse by claiming they have to do that to keep offering “Always low prices”. But they use all kinds of cheap tricks to keep the big bucks rolling into big pockets and little bucks being sucked out of little pockets like mine. Case in point, I was trying to score another fix in my recent addle-brained Brony addiction by completing a set of Equestria Girls. On the bargain-clearance-sale table was the perfect thing. Pinkie Pie from the Rainbow Rocks series next to a price that said $11. Now, I don’t have Pinkie Pie. I have Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, and Apple Jack, but Pinkie Pie is the one every little girl (apparently just like this crazy old man) wants first. So, Bazinga! For the first time I could acquire Pinkie Pie and come in under the $20 dollar rule. But, wait just a minute! This is Walmart we are talking about here. The nearest price checker was broken and hadn’t been fixed in months. So I asked a working Walmart minion stocking the toy shelves where the nearest working price checker was. Of course, they didn’t have one anywhere in the store. But shelf-stockers carry a portable pricing gun, and she checked it for me. $21.97! It was actually the same price it would normally be on the shelves. (Granted it is a lower starting price than Toys-R-Us, but it still breaks the $20 rule.) The $11 price was coded for the Rainbow Dash doll that was sitting there next to the Pinkie Pie. They count on me being stupid enough to run to checkout with the wrong price in my head and gleefully pay the higher price without thinking or looking too closely. So I outfoxed them. Rainbow Dash was sitting there at the shelf-damaged, clearance-sale price and it was (after careful inspection) mint in box.
So, that is essentially my point today. Conservative and mega-fearful paranoid people like your usual conspiracy theorist and distrustful Tea-Party Republican would pull back with venom and recount their Second-Amendment rights. Not me. Life gives me lemons and I make… frosted lemon cheesecake with a dash of rainbow. Sure, I think the Bush family are secretly Nazis… but you are not paranoid if there really is a conspiracy and you’ve seen the evidence. But Friday the 13th can be a lucky day. Good things can happen if you make them happen and use the talents and intelligence that God granted you for that very purpose. (I confess, I used to listen to Norman Vincent Peale on the radio and I actually believed his crap about the power of positive thinking.) Let me show you a few more of my bargain-purchase collectible accomplishments;
I do realize that I posed these dolls on Radasha’s face and that I ought to have put old drawings away in their proper portfolio place, not leave them out on the drawing board. But, what do you think I am? Some sort of irresponsible goofy old cartoonist who gets too caught up with playing with dolls, or something? Please don’t answer that.
The Tinkerbell dolls were also from the bargain table, only one of them was priced correctly on the table. The rest are showing you Barbie dresses on dolls I rescued from Goodwill and a Re-Sale store. These are dolls that were naked, abused, and previously loved and played-with by some little girl (or possibly confused little boy). I have a soft spot for rescue dolls that went naked into charity work at the risk of ending up in the garbage bin. They remind me of me when I went into teaching.
Ah, the power of positive thinking! (And I didn’t just add that last sigh to get over the 1000 word goal, either.)
Catch a Falling Star 