Make-a-Wish Gone Wild

This is just too funny. Enjoy!


Child Bankrupts Make-A-Wish Foundation With Wish For Unlimited Wishes

Owl Jolson

Quite possibly my favorite cartoon ever. It's from 1932. Enjoy!

"Give Me My Robe, Put On My Crown. I Have Immortal Longings In Me"

This evening I wasn't feeling very good, but I was moving slowly around the kitchen getting dinner ready for the kids and warming some leftover soup for Teresa and me. My wife runs a very tight ship around here, so I am not permitted rest or sick days. She demands dinner on the table within 30 minutes of her arrival from work, and I'd best mind my P's and Q's and get it done. No one who knows my wife wants to face her wrath, and after 14 years of marriage, I know better than to test her fury, lest I pay the price for my insolence. Quit your whining, Bill, and fetch my dinner!

Anyway, there I was with something akin to the Bubonic Plague, wearing gloves and a bio hazard suit, so as not to infect the rest of the family. Teresa was sitting at the table waiting and demanding I get her a beer, but I was not allowed to stop fanning her off with the palm branch while reaching for the beer in the fridge - a feat that took some serious dexterity. While reaching for the beer, my arm fell off (most likely from the leprosy I contracted as a result of my plague-weakened immune system). No matter, prosthetics are very well made these days. After grabbing the beer with the toes of my left foot and opening it for Teresa with my nose hairs while continuing my fanning, my daughter Grace looked up from her homework at the dining room table out of the blue and declared, "I don't want a woman to be voted in as President." The comment brought both Teresa and me to a cold halt. My right ear promptly dropped on the hardwood floor. I am not sure if it was from my shock at Grace's comment or the gangrene, but I was grateful that in my condition there was very little blood around the edges of the ear's cartiledge, saving me from more discipline for making a mess on the floor.

I think Teresa and I were thinking the same thing. We both carefully said through clenched teeth and strained breath, "Oh? Why is that?" Our kids go to a fairly conservative Christian school. The teachers are very supportive of letting parents instill the values in our kids that we want instilled. The problem is usually with other students, a few of whom are the offspring of true, red-blooded, ultra-traditionalist, American Evangelicals. Some of them have their kids tell other children in the school that there is no Santa Claus, anyone who believes that the world is older than 6000 years is going to Hell (which is much worse in the Evangelical, ultra-conservative mind than global warming), and women have no business even thinking about leading men. If we're not careful, women may even start wanting to become doctors or may want to vote! Now, those kids are the extreme minority, but they are a very vocal minority. Correcting their words in the minds of our children is not very difficult yet, because our kids are still young enough that they listen to their parents more than their peers. In a couple of years, though, this will be more of a problem. It's not like talking to our kids about something an atheistic kid told them on the playground at a public school. That would be much easier, because our kids have experienced Jesus, and they can see through the BS of most non-believing comments. The problem with this is that these kids profess Jesus just like my kids, so the truth of who we all are in Christ gets much more muddled. Can my creative, imaginative daughter love Jesus and still believe in a beautiful, magical childhood world where Santa Claus, Trick or Treating, and friendly woodland fairies and unicorns abound? I think so, and Teresa and I encourage her to not lose her imagination. We believe that the loss of imagination is possibly the greatest current threat to the Body of Christ. But still, our 8 year old, who wants to please her parents and the Jesus she asked into her heart, struggles at times with the judgmental Jesus portrayed by some of her closest friends. So, we braced ourselves, lining up the arguments and corrections to help our daughter realize that a woman can lead, whether we think Hillary should be that woman was not on the table. Best stick to the simple facts.

After a long pause and some coughing up of blood on my part, my daughter gave her reason for not wanting a woman to be voted in as President: "Because I want to be the first woman to become President of the United States!"

We were so happy, that we didn't even bother to comment on selfishness or too much ambition. We both released our breath and said, "Oh, thank God! Absolutely, you should be the first woman president!" I almost had tears in my eyes (if my tear ducts hadn't completely dried up from my dehydration), as I sat down with Grace to start planning her fund-raising for the campaign. I was so proud of Grace, a kid who was very meek when younger, that she felt strong enough and bold enough to believe she could be President one day!

My reverie was short lived, however, because Teresa saw me sitting down and began beating me with a reed. During the barrage of painful strikes, in my head I kept hearing, "Grace is Woman. Hear her roar!"