
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, January 9, 1995                   TAG: 9501190051
SECTION: EXTRA                    PAGE: 1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BEN BEAGLE
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

SORRY YOU MISSED THE ANNUAL REPORT

I have always had deep admiration for those people who take the time to write annual reports on their families and send them along with their Christmas cards.

I wanted to do that this year, but the greatest station wagon driver of them all wasn't interested to the point of becoming quite testy about it.

"But my little poinsettia," I said, "memory's the name and writing's my game. I'll bet a veritable host of people would slap their thighs in unrestrained glee at the stuff that happens to us each year. That was really funny when I broke the light globe on the bottom of the fan and it cost $35 to replace it."

"Yeah, sure," the driver said. "I can see it now. All of those people just killing themselves with laughter about a ceiling fan globe. People want to hear of big things that have happened during the year - like winning the lottery or the Nobel Prize for Literature."

``I scarcely need to remind you, my good woman," I said, "that I will never win the Nobel Prize, and not only that, I don't want to. You have to leave home on an airplane, and they expect you to make a speech. I would not, however, object to winning the lottery."

"I know what would happen if you wrote one of those things to put in the Christmas cards," the driver said. "People would know the most intimate details of our plumbing problems - which would not be very tasteful, if you ask me."

"I think, my little Shawsville flower, that you underestimate the interest our fellow Americans have in plumbing," I said. "I daresay every man-jack or woman-jackette on this continent has a plumbing story to tell."

"It's kind of like a gall bladder operation or rotator cuff-repair. Everybody is interested in such things. It is a rich source of Americana."

"Yeah," the driver said. "And then you'd want to show off your rotator-cuff scars in another of your exercises in bad taste."

"Well," I said, "I think there are many women who would count it a privilege and an honor long to be remembered to look at my scars."

"Whatever," the driver said, giving the clear signal that the conversation was over.

So, all of you missed the annual report.

It's too bad. I just hope contemporary literature can stand the shock.

There's pure humor and tragedy here. Eugene O'Neill could have written a play about our plumbing.

by CNB