What I Know for Sure

Here we are about to embark on a New Year. Do we care? I think we do. We care enough to pause and reflect and watch shows about lists of people who died this year and the like. We at least think about making some resolutions to break. Or we think about how we're not going to bother making resolutions since we always break them. One or the other, if only because everyone will ask.

I'm thinking about what I know for sure.

Of course, Jesus died for my sins, an hour in Purgatory is worth sixty earth years, and the Pope is infallible.

I'm not talking about those things.

I'm talking about things like singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" all the way through when you wash your hands, otherwise your hands are not really clean. I mentioned this the other day and some readers told me they tell people to sing the "Alphabet Song". They went so far as to say they thought it was better because it may be a little longer.

Here's what I know for sure. Those two songs are exactly the same length because....brace yourselves....they are the SAME SONG. Seriously, wake up people.

So is "Baa, Baa Black Sheep", but before the nit-pickers show up, to make it long enough you have to repeat the beginning of that one at the end again, up to the 'three bags full" part.

One of my readers suggested saying the "Hail Mary" while washing hands. Fine. But say two. Better yet, an Act of Contrition. Remember, an hour in Purgatory is worth sixty earth years.

I only know a few things for sure. Those three songs are the same song. Aloe vera works better on burns than anything else ever and one more thing: If you blow your nose in a cotton hankie, you can blow it seven thousand times in a row and it will never get sore. I was told this amazing fact by a woman who was at one time my mother's next door neighbor, Bert. Bert gave me this gem when she was eighty years old and ironically, by the time Bert left us for her heavenly reward of cottony clouds, she had no nose to speak of due to skin cancer from her youthful days as a tennis star before the age of sun block. Anyhow, Bert told me somberly that your nose will always get sore when blowing in tissue, because no matter how much lotion they stick in it, you are still blowing your nose on hunks of wood.

I spent years testing Bert's theory. It's no theory. I know for sure that if you blow your nose in cotton, it will never get sore.

Bert, by the way, lived to be 108 years old. After she died I have since been fascinated with the idea that she had told me her useful information 28 years ago...when she was 80. If only I had thought to ask her what she knew for sure, besides the hankie thing.

Many people now days are loath to use a cotton hankie because they want to throw their germs away on the Kleenex. Fine. Have a sore nose. I will use a cotton hankie, have a comfortable nose and wash my hands while singing one of three songs that have the same tune and are the same length. I will end with an Act of Contrition in case my germs were spread before I got to a faucet.