Millions of people will be celebrating the Fourth of July this week with all kinds of revelries. One thing the American Constitution affords is the freedom to act like a fool. From my sarcastic vantage point, most people abuse this freedom quite regularly.

The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage once asked me when she caught me doing something rather foolish, "Are you acting like a fool?"

I gave her one of my blank stares and she thought for a moment and answered her own question. "No, I can see you're not acting. Nobody is that good of an actor."

I was not quite sure how to take it but I took it like a man. As an American citizen, I have the freedom to "take it like a man" anything my wife gives me. And, conversely, she has the freedom to give it to me. I will not say she abuses this freedom but she certainly exercises it to the fullest extent of the law. And she sure is not acting.

Just when you think people have exhausted the art of acting like a fool somebody does something that