The beauty of simple questions and answers

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“Today I met a batty woman who came up to me and told me that I should repent. I told this strange woman who stood before my giant 4×4 Toyota, she was trespassing and told her to move aside or I will have to drive over her.

Again she told me to repent. This time proclaiming in a loud booming voice, ‘renounce your heathen ways!’ I told her, if she could supply me one good reason, I will take off all my clothes and prostrate myself before her God – right there and then. When this woman heard this, she gasped and some of her friends proceeded to faint.

This woman went on to tell me that God had blessed me bountifully. She went on to recount, since I am doing so well, her God must have certainly placed his hand on me and I should at least show my gratitude by making a point to attend church every Sunday and to make a donation.

I told her plainly – I shall do no such thing. As my apparent success has nothing whatsoever with any form of divine intervention of any kind – to the best of my knowledge my apparent good fortune is due primarily to my dedication and hard work to continouosly improve my craft as a planter.

She called me a proud and arrogant man who deserved to be called the devil……somewhere in her rant she even asked, ‘are you going to turn me into a frog?’ I told her that would not be necessary, as she already looks like a toad and wished her a very good day and drove right off. Somewhere between two palms, I remembered a stanza from Dante’s inferno,

“I rather rule in hell than be ruled in heaven….”

How very true.