Third grade. Thanksgiving week. For a school project, the teacher had all the kids in class make paper turkeys. We used colored paper, and traced around patterns that she had provided, cut out the designs, and then assembled our “work of art.” Unknown to us, the project was to be graded.

At first, it would seem that everyone’s turkey would look the same. I mean, we all used the same pattern, and the same colored paper. But the end result was drastically different from student to student. Most of the finished projects did resemble a turkey - except for one kid. He thought it would be “better” if things were put together backwards. Instead of the feet at the bottom and feathers arranged around the top, his had them swapped. He told the teacher his was a dead turkey.

No, the kid wasn’t me, but his design did give me an idea. Before the teacher could check mine, I did some quick modifications. Using the scissors, I cut off all the feathers, the feet, and the head. All that remained was an almost round piece of brown paper. This is what I presented - a cooked turkey!

Needless to say, the teacher was not impressed by either of our jokes. And at lunch time, we got the privilege of making our turkeys again. And, we were told, we couldn’t go to recess before we’d finished.

The other kid went through the whole process again, tracing the patterns, cutting out all new parts from the colored paper and gluing them together. But me, I’ve always been in a hurry. Making a whole new turkey threatened to take up all of my time for lunch recess. So, I had a quick solution, I just glued the pieces I’d cut off back on - and didn’t even try to hide it, I glued them right on the front. Of course, my turkey was a little out of proportion and smaller than it had been. But the teacher hadn’t said it had to be perfect!

She never said a word about the way I’d fixed it, just told me to go ahead and go outside.

I should’ve known something was up.

Normally, any projects we made were taken home, but not the turkeys. The teacher kept them. A few weeks later, I found out why.

Open house. All the parents of the students and lots of other people showed up to walk through the classrooms and check out what the kids had been doing. And in my room? Yep, the turkeys we’d made were displayed - with our names in big bold letters. You could easily see where I’d cut everything off and glued it again. Obviously, the lady was trying to embarrass me! Okay, maybe she was trying to teach me a lesson, I don’t know.

But, I did know that I wasn’t going to let her win.

While she was busy talking to my parents, I took my turkey down, flipped it around, and taped it back on the wall. With the ugly cuts and splices now hidden, it didn’t look too bad. It was still smaller and looking the opposite direction than everybody else’s, but it did look like a turkey.

The next day the teacher handed out our turkeys for us to take home. Mine was not handed out. When I asked where it was, she said she was keeping it for a while and would return it later. Turns out, she’d discovered that two turkeys could be made from the same amount of paper if they were made just slightly smaller and she wanted to use my turkey for a pattern!

My grade? An “A!”

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books. Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, and other titles, are available as ebooks on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. His books are also available in paperback at most online retailers or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. The popular Wynn Garrett Series Books are now available on Barnes And Noble® at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?series_id=867526 See Bruce’s Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders?ref=BruceABorders  #BruceABorders

My wife’s idea of cleaning up the clutter and mine are two vastly different things. For my wife, cleaning means to throw away everything in sight. For me, it’s more like rearrange things and hide stuff. The hiding aspect comes in pretty handy - if I want to keep anything! We’ve sort of learned to put up with each other’s different approach and make it work.

This past week, she went on another “cleaning” spree. I’ll admit, the kitchen does look different - clean, I guess. But I keep wondering what I’ll be looking for next week or next month. I’m sure I’ll be digging through everything, trying to find a certain something, and talking to myself, saying, “I know I had that, but where did I put it?”

Of course, I could ask my wife - but by then, she won’t remember. Out of sight, out of mind, you know. When my kids still lived at home we all knew if something was missing to check the trash.

In her defense, sometimes the items she chooses to toss are well past their expiration date and I just choose to ignore that fact. But sometimes there is nothing wrong at all - she simply doesn’t want them any longer. I suppose it comes down to this; I’m sentimental and she is not. So, I keep almost everything, she keep nearly nothing. After nearly thirty years, I am kind of used to it.

I’ve also learned to combat her discarding of perfectly good things that I want to keep. It’s easy, I just go through the trash. Which is what I did this past week, as soon as I noticed the kitchen. Found some things too. Things I refuse to throw away. And hid them. The end result? I still have my stuff and the kitchen is still clean! Like I said, we’ve learned to make it work!

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books. Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, and other titles, are available as ebooks on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. His books are also available in paperback at most online retailers or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. The popular Wynn Garrett Series Books are now available on Barnes And Noble® at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?series_id=867526 See Bruce’s Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders?ref=BruceABorders  #BruceABorders

So, the Post Office is going broke. No surprise since it is run by the government. The buffoons in Washington, DC, couldn’t run a lemonade stand and turn a profit - even if the lemons were donated! It seems the idea of generating a profit - or just breaking even, for that matter - is a foreign concept to our government.

On the surface, it appears they are bursting with great ideas; ideas that should produce, or at least contribute to a healthy profit margin. But whatever they try, troubles seem to plague the once efficient Postal Service. (Well, if you go back to the Benjamin Franklin days).

They routinely and frequently raise the cost of postage. Before the ink dries on Congress’ stamp of approval, they’re petitioning for yet another rate hike. They print commemorative and collector edition stamps in hopes that people will buy, but never use them. And many folks do, including me when they issued the Johnny Cash stamp last June. And still, they’re going broke.

They offer a vast number of special services, most of them useless, to maximize revenue, things like: insurance, certified mail, registered mail, priority mail, and next day delivery just to name a few. For these services, for which there is little or no additional cost, they charge a premium price. Yet, they’re still going broke.

They’ve purchased new fuel-efficient vehicles, streamlined and automated sorting and delivery. They’ve shortened routes by discontinuing home delivery in many areas and consolidated mailboxes in a lot of others. In recent years, they have ventured into the packaging business as well, selling boxes, bubble wrap, and tape among other things - at a fairly hefty markup too. Despite all this, they’re going broke.

In order to give the Postal Service an advantage, there’s long been a ban on UPS, FedEx, or any other private company delivering letters, flyers, or other mailings. By law, these companies may only deliver packages. And even with this unfair advantage, the Post Office is going broke.

And lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about eliminating Saturday delivery. Cutting back to  a five-day delivery format would save millions they claim. The idea isn’t new, I remember hearing it as a kid - in the seventies. For now, Congress has nixed the idea. And, the Post Office is still going broke.

For the last twenty years or so, the money woes have been blamed on technology, starting with the fax machine, and now email, texting, and FTP (File Transfer Protocol). Yet, the amount of mail, by volume, has steadily increased. The reason? Junk mail. Companies, through advertisers or direct mailings are willing to pay big bucks to get their offers to potential consumers. In fact, junk mail has been directly credited with keeping the Postal Service from going completely under. (That’s typical - the government run entity can only stay in business by delivering millions of pieces of mail that nobody wants or needs. Most of this “mail” is instantly discarded, having never been opened. Yet, this junk mail just may be useful.

You see, I might have a solution for the whole problem. My plan will immediately increase the revenue stream for the floundering Postal Service - dramatically. At the same time, it will decrease the amount of junk mail we throw away.

It’s simple really. All we need to do is open a few pieces of the junk mail, find one of those pre-addressed postage-paid envelopes and stuff as much other junk mail as possible inside. (You may want to remove your name from it first). Then, drop the bulging envelope into one of those big blue boxes. All those companies who love to flood our mailbox with junk mail will be paying the Postal Service to have it shipped back. Then, the companies can throw it all away - it’s a win all the way around!

Of course, as soon as these businesses realize what’s happening, they’ll either raise prices or cut the amount of junk mail they’re sending out, maybe both. And then the Post Office will be right back in the same boat - and sinking.

But, we could still give it a try. It might work. I say we go for broke!

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books. Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, and other titles, are available as ebooks on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. His books are also available in paperback at most online retailers or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. The popular Wynn Garrett Series Books are now available on Barnes And Noble® at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?series_id=867526 See Bruce’s Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders?ref=BruceABorders  #BruceABorders

Last Saturday night (Sunday morning for anyone who wants to get technical) was my favorite night of the year - the time change in the fall. Not that I like the shorter days that follow but right at first, the time change is great. Most people see the night as an opportunity to get more sleep. Not me. Sleep is highly over-rated.

See, I’m a busy guy, working my regular job, taking care of things at home, and writing. The writing is more than a full time job in itself. So, I really look forward to having an extra hour - at home. It’s delightful to be sitting at the computer, watching the time, waiting for the clock go from 1:59 to 1:00. A gift of time is one of the best there is. And I don’t want to spend it sleeping - that is too unproductive. I have things to do!

I often wonder though, just how much extra work I actually get done. With all the anticipation, paying more attention to the clock than to working, probably not much.        And then afterwards, continually looking at the time for the next hour, things don’t really improve. All these distractions make it difficult to concentrate. Could it be that instead of gaining an hour, I actually lose two? Maybe.

Still, it seems like I have extra time. And in fact, a 25-hour day is indeed longer than any other. (Unless you’re traveling across multiple time zones in a westerly direction, really fast). I’m just not sure I get any more accomplished in that 25-hour day than in a normal one. But, it makes me happy to think I’m going to. And it’s still my favorite night of the year.

Of course, six months from now, I’ll be depressed. When the time changes back. That’s my least favorite night of the year. Somehow, it’s not quite as much fun seeing the clock skip an hour. A 23-hour day means less time to work. I have to stay up an extra hour just to break even. But then, sleep is highly over-rated.

Bruce A. Borders is the author of more than a dozen books. Inside Room 913, Over My Dead Body, The Journey, and Miscarriage Of Justice, and other titles, are available as ebooks on Apple I-Pad®, Amazon Kindle®, Barnes & Noble Nook® and Sony Reader®, Kobo, Diesel Books, and Smashwords. His books are also available in paperback at most online retailers or at www.bruceabordersbooks.weebly.com. The popular Wynn Garrett Series Books are now available on Barnes And Noble® at http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/?series_id=867526 See Bruce’s Smashwords Profile at www.smashwords.com/profile/view/BruceABorders?ref=BruceABorders  #BruceABorders