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Designated Writers
No disrespect intended, but Gump’s mom was wrong. Life is not like a box of chocolates.
Not if the box is one of those heart-shaped boxes you buy at the last minute at the grocery store on Valentine’s Day Eve.
Unlike this box of chocolates, most of life is good. There are more good surprises than bad. If you are looking for a good piece of candy in one of these boxes, my hopes and prayers are with you because you’ve got a better chance of meeting Willie Wonka.
Don’t hold your breath.
Some people like these boxes. One friend of mine even requested her husband get her just that this week. Which he did. (She also makes him eat a banana each weekday morning, even though he hates bananas, and she made him buy his own bananas that Sunday night to bring home. The ultimate indignity and a long story. More later. Back to bad candy.)
So some people like the candies in the red heart-shaped box. Some people like Brussels sprouts too. And the Toronto Raptors. And Olympic curling.
The pieces of candy look different, but there’s no way to tell what will be in what. You’ll see about six dark, dark pieces. Those are automatically out. There will be a couple of creamy ones that are trying to be strawberry flavored. Once will cover a big hard nut. Fittingly, everything else in the heart-shaped box tastes like the aorta or ventricle.
One, maybe two, will taste like a Nestle Crunch. Not quite, but at least it’s trying. And that’s it. That’s the Holy Grail of every box.
Bet the box tastes better than the candy.
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Designated Writers Daily Happen

Veteran readers of Designated Writers’ daily Facebook posts going all the way back to … last month … might have noticed how I took some much-needed vacation time for the last few days. Y’all might have thought the stress of having to pound out 300 words every other day for … a month … might have been too much for me, thereby forcing me to take time off.

I had to let Teddy take over and pitch every day on short rest with his Mardi Gras retrospective, and I hope you enjoyed it.

But I sheepishly have to admit there was another reason why my byline was silenced. And it’s a reason I’m having a hard time fully coming to grips with it.

I had the flu. Or maybe I didn’t. The test said I didn’t, so even the doctor didn’t know.

One of my favorite personal bragging points is that I never get sick. And that’s fairly accurate. The first time I missed a day of work due to sickness at the Shreveport Journal, they announced the paper was folding. (That’ll teach me.) I don’t ever recall missing a day of high school. I might have missed the occasional day of college but, hey … you know …

However, after being sick for the last seven days, I discovered something that people around me had already found out — I’m no good at it. I stink at being sick. I whine, I complain and I act like I’m the only person who has ever felt bad.

On good days I’m a hypochondriac, so you can only imagine how insufferable I am when I’m suffering.

And yes, I was sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Teddy and Mrs. Teddy were both down for the count for an extended period of time recently, and you never heard a peep out of either one of them. Me? I get a little cough and act like I’m hocking up a lung.

I think one of the reasons I don’t get sick is because no one — including medical personnel — can stand to be around it. My being healthy is a win-win for everybody.