THE US CONSTITUTION

Article 1: Section 8

Clause 1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

It turns out that the Supreme Court and I disagree on what it means to provide for the "general Welfare" of the citizens of the United States of America.  I believed that, in this case, the authors of the Constitution intended the use of the word to mean our general "good health, fortune, prosperity and well-being."  I guess the majority (5-4) of the Supreme Court Justices grew up believing the definition of the word to be "a governmental agency that provides fund and aid to people in need."

Brilliant. 

The medical insurance/pharmaceutical industries have been lining their pockets with the very lucrative consequences of fear for years.  Thanks to our government, none of them has to worry about one thing that is common to the general public -- the possibility of unemployment.

Apparently

ap·par·ent

   /əˈpærənt, əˈpɛər-/ Show Spelled[uh-par-uhnt, uh-pair-] 

adjective

1.readily seen; exposed to sight; open to view; visible: The crack in the wall was readily apparent.

2.capable of being easily perceived or understood; plain or clear; obvious: The solution to the problem was apparent to all.

3.according to appearances, initial evidence, incomplete results, etc.; ostensible rather than actual: He was the apparent winner of the election.

4.entitled to a right of inheritance by birth, indefeasible except by one's death before that of the ancestor, to an inherited throne, title, or other estate.

It turns out this is not a word that is intended to be inserted at the beginning of every sentence kids. 

Liar, Liar: Pants on Fire

These days, I feel like I'm hanging upside down from a telephone wire.  Recently, a girlfriend shared some information about one of our children's mutual friends.  It didn't feel like super hush-hush information, but I still didn't intend for it to fall out of my mouth the way it did to my daughter the next day in my just-waking-up-from-a-not-nearly-long-enough nap.  Crap. 

Of course, I pointed out that this information didn't need to be shared because it would just be hurtful, but, holy crap batman: do NOT tell me the directions to your batcave right now!

By the next day, I came home from church to find the 16 year old in crocodile sized tears, everyone (the son of the girlfriend, the girlfriend, the mutual friend who had negative things said about her AND the mutual friend's mom) were all calling my daughter a LIAR (and that is putting it mildly.) 

I couldn't reach anyone by phone and drove directly to Mom Y's house to confront her about calling my daughter a liar instead of calling and yelling at me for sharing the details of a "private" conversation (the comments had been made within earshot of most of our children).  Not understanding the hold that Mom X has on my girlfriend, Mom Y, I tried to call and smooth out all of the edges.  In a split second decision, I decided to go to the house of Mom X and make it my fault.  I alluded to the things that had come from my mouth but said that they had been "misunderstood."

I've never regretted covering the tail end of a friend as much as that moment of deception.  I wanted to protect my friend, who was (in my humble opinion) behaving irrationally based on some fear of knowing just how powerful Mom X is in that neighborhood.  But, what I ended up doing was to cause my daughter's friend to doubt her words and her motive. 

Her motive?  She wanted to put her friend on guard around Mom Y so that she wouldn't believe Mom Y is an ally when she is absolutely not.  Mom Y has some very unfriendly opinions about this girl that she doesn't want her to know about.

As for the backlash...

Mom X won't let daughter X come to my house anymore.  The reason?  Because I am a LIAR.  The awful part about is that for that one moment, I was.  I protected my friend...saved face for her.  In return, my daughter's integrity and my own are in question and this woman (and her son) had the gall to yell out, put down and use degrading language toward my little girl -- demanding an apology from her in the process.  Um...no.

Who needs enemies when you have friends like that?