Jack, Your Beans Are Enchanting!

I have no scientific data to back my statement, but I’m pretty sure people born in the month of October have contributed to the slowing of our economy. 

I was born in October, and I say this to you in a somber, this is serious, voice, “being an October baby is dangerous.”   Now I don’t want to scare any of you, but I feel it is my responsibility to tell you that if October is the month of your birth, you could be in serious jeopardy.  And if you drink coffee and frequent the caffeine dispensing kiosks that dot the landscape, your risk of peril is increased a hundred-fold.  Sure, everybody who drinks coffee is aware of the risks involved.  It’s not only the October babies who knock over store displays as they’re crawling around looking for the change that dropped out of their caffeine-induced shaking hands when they pay for their Tums.  But it’s the October babies who are in real life-threatening danger.

For example, Friday morning I was going to buy my first “birthday coffee” of the year.  Unfortunately, about 2:30 in the morning I woke up to the pounding of the wind against the side of the house.  Whooosh … bang!  As I listened to the howling wind tear the leaves off the trees, I carried on a debate with myself.

― “Maybe I should  postpone my first birthday coffee.  What if it blows out of my hand while  

      I'm walking into work?” 

― “Am I going to let the wind rule my life?” 

           ― “No!” I said.  “No! Fie on you wind!  You will not keep me from my birthday coffee!        

                 Fie!  Fie! Fie!”

Friday morning I got up and prepared to meet the wind head on.  I wore earrings that would not blow out of my ears.  I put my birthday money in a zip-lock baggie and zipped it securely inside my purse.  I squared my shoulders, lowered my head, and fought my way to the car.  Defiantly I drove to my favorite coffee kiosk.  I somehow managed to order, pay for, and receive my coffee without my change or my coffee blowing across the parking lot.  My car door didn’t even get blown into the little wooden house and that’s quite a feat considering I had to use my full weight to open the door against the wind so I could stand half in/half out to pay for and get my coffee.  That’s because Wyoming kiosks are made for elephant-sized 4-wheel-drive trucks, not little Hondas where coffee-starved heads barely reach the bottom of the kiosk window.  

I felt victorious.  I had beaten the wind and proven my superiority to nature!  I continued my journey to work gloating over my triumph.  And then I unavoidably ran over a four or five-inch diameter, four-foot long, leaf-covered branch in the middle of my lane.  No damage.  No liquid leaking from a punctured something or other; but I began feeling somewhat less triumphant.  

A few minutes later I narrowly avoided one of those kiddie-car shopping carts which had rolled from the grocery store, across four lanes of traffic and settled against the curb, partially residing in my lane.  I began to feel a bit anxious.  

A couple of blocks later, on the same four-lane road, I swerved to avoid a tire which had rolled from a tire store’s tipped over display.  My uneasiness increased and I began to fear what awaited me when I finally arrived at work and had to make the walk across the parking lot, fighting 65 mph wind gusts, holding my first birthday coffee. 

I pulled into the parking lot, gave myself a brief pep talk, took a deep breath, opened the door, and fought my way across the lot to the office door.  It wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fun but I made it, with only one hand wet from blown-out coffee. 

This example was just one dangerous day in the life of a coffee-drinking October baby.  Sadly, there is nothing I or any other October babies can do about it.  We’ve already been born.  We can’t change the month of our birth. We must just practice survival techniques and be alert to lurking dangers. 

But some of you have the ability to thwart the peril of the October baby.  I call upon those of you who have that capability to take it upon yourselves to do just that.  If you have been contemplating creating a “bun in the oven”, a “little one”, a small human, otherwise known as a baby, you can do your part to not only make the world a safer place, but you may be able to save our economic future.  Choose another month for this birth.  Because many, many of those innocent, wide-eyed, drooling, nose-picking October babies are going to grow up to be coffee-drinking adults, living where the wind wakes up in October.  They may not survive what awaits them. 

Do not be the parent who sends them on a direct path toward risk of bodily injury merely because of the month of their birth.  Please, all of you Fertile Myrtles and Ardent Arnies, if you do your part, not only will no future babies be faced with the October baby danger, you may very well be the saviors of our economy.  Because if the insurance companies no longer need to pay out all the October baby claims, they will of course pass those savings on to the public in the form of lower premiums, which everybody will spend, which will save small businesses and big businesses and create jobs and security and the economy will be healthy and strong again ....................................................................or not.

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Jack, Your Beans Are Enchanting!