I find too often I get all caught up with the busyness of life that I forget some things. For example, last week the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I had birthdays.

Our birthdays are only two days apart, which is convenient for me. My birthday is first, and if my wife gets me anything for my birthday, it reminds me I need to get something for her birthday two days later. I could not plan it out any better had I tried.

I do not want to alarm anyone – I’m not wound that tight – but there is a devious conspiracy in our country. A cabal of murderous distortions.

To be quite honest about all this, I was not the first to notice this conspiracy. In fact, it is quite unusual for me to notice anything first. As all husbands know, the husband is the last to know . . . anything.

It was the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage who first become aware of this conspiracy and brought it to my attention. I like to give credit where credit is due, unlike some banks I know of, or who know me.

This is not the first time something like this has happened. Don’t ask me how she does it, for I do not know. I just wish I knew her secret. My wife is the first to notice everything.

I’m not sure who come up with this term “Black Friday” but I am definitely not for it. To me, Black Friday is rather devious and I know the only purpose is to get their teeth into my money, which is a sacred area to me.

When it comes to shopping, I certainly am not a fan. I really do not like shopping. I get nervous when I’m in the shopping mall, start sweating and have to leave and sit in my car for at least half an hour to regain composure.

I have many interests and passions in life, but trust me, shopping is not one of them. I can live my whole life without ever shopping.

On the other side of our residence, it is a different story.

After about a million days of toil, sweat and aggravation, the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I decided to take a few days off and relax.

I am not a real expert when it comes to relaxing. I have not pursued a PhD in relaxing and therefore it is a foreign theme to me.

Of course, I have advised many people to chill out, relax a little bit and not get so excited about things. What doctor do you know who takes his own medicine? Or, what pastor do you know that listens to his own sermon?

An old saying more or less defines my life, “What we learn from history is that we don’t learn from history.”

When I was younger, I assumed that the older I got, the smarter I would become. I have not achieved that at this point in my life. It gets so tiresome to repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

I do hope though, that this will change somewhere along my life. I am hoping it changes before I die.

This past week I had to go to the mall. I know, I should know better, but I thought I could sneak in, get what I needed and sneak out again. So much for my thoughts.

I wanted to purchase several tie chains for my neckties and searched every jewelry store and nobody had them. Finally, I ordered three online, which would be shipped free, (which always gets my attention) to the nearest store, which happened to be in the mall.

I do not like the mall and choose not to go there if I can help it. When in the mall, I am usually very nervous and get confused and do not know which way I am going. Once I get in, I am not quite sure how to get out again. Everything seems to be contrived to confuse a person like myself.

Between now and the end of the year our house is going to be a mad dash for the stores in preparation for Christmas.

This time of the year, I lay low and try to be as invisible as possible. If I hide in the shadows of the parsonage and do not speak, I am in pretty good shape. I have been practicing this for over 40 years, so I have reached a certain level of proficiency.

Having a wife and two daughters has been a challenge, especially at this time of the year. My son and I have survived and so I am sure I will make it through another year. However, I am not taking anything for granted.

I am somewhat of a competitive person, in some degree. I like a good challenge and I certainly like to win. Going up against the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage has not been a successful competition. Even when she loses, so to speak, she wins. When she wins, I also win, so why should I complain?

The contest at this time of the year is to see how much money these ladies of the parsonage can save. I have not kept track over the years for obvious reasons, so I do not know who is ahead and who is behind.

At times, I have to do some errands for the Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage. It’s not that I like to do these errands, but I have learned this is one secret to getting along with her.

The errand she had for me was to go to the Mall and pick up something she had ordered. In my own way I tried to finagle out of that errand, but the more I finagled the more insistent she was. So, I decided to finagle no more.

As the pop song says, “I have a million reasons not to go, give me one reason to go.” I tried to play this on her and her response was, “Because I asked you to.”