You try to have
a cool celebration for the teens in Seminary (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints), for the Prophet’s 100th Birthday yesterday:
President Russell M. Nelson is
absolutely amazing—looks 60, and still sharp as a whip.He became a doctor at 22, finished
surgical training at Harvard, was on the team that created the first artificial
lung and heart, was a pioneer in artificial heart surgery, has perfect pitch,
plays piano and organ, speaks fluent Mandarin and has studied 12 other
languages, served in the Korean War, is a father of 10, and has 57 grandkids
and 119 great-grandkids. He has visited 113 different nations and has been in an
apostle since 1984.
So you want to do this right. You
spell “100” in gold balloons. You hang a banner. You bring his favorite treat: Apples.
You even have a cake with 100 candles on it:
And you have a great celebration
with the students. Afterwards, you load what’s left into the car—most of the
cake, and seven of the apples. If this sounds like a story problem, it is both
a story AND a problem.
Because the minute you get out on
the road, some turkey—and I mean an ACTUAL TURKEY—darts out in front of you.
You slam on the brakes. Everything
(except the turkey) goes flying. Apples and basket fall onto the floor.
Balloons pop and release helium. The
cake slides under my seat, getting frosting all over the wires and tubes under
there. The phone-to-TV wire also falls into the frosting. I have to hurry off to a funeral,
so there’s no time to clean this up, and the frosting turns into cement.
Meanwhile, the turkey returns to
its tribe, a hero for having even tried to cross the street.
And, somehow, I have to think
that President Nelson would have gotten a kick out of this.
Have you subscribed to this blog,
yet? Don’t wait until you turn 100—do it today!