I'm rewarding myself

Dear all,

Well, I just got grades in for my BYU classes, which is a wondrous feeling. I've still got to do the Westminster grades, but that won't take long, and that's only one class, as opposed to the three I had to grade at BYU.

Also, the weather's been nicer, so that helps immensely with my health, my mood, et al. We're planning on moving into the condo soon (as I mentioned before, the landlord is sprucing things up), and that's a good thing. In other words, life is splendid.

So splendid, in fact, that I've decided to take a small liberty with the bank account. See, back when I was getting sick every week, M. and I put away some money to cover medical expenses. It was actually quite a bit of money, since, at the rate I was going, we half expected to be paying for a surgery or something. Now, however, I'm feeling much, much better, and the money's just sitting there, collecting whatever interest a checking account gets. "Hey," I told myself, "there's got to be a better use for that cash." And, as it turns out, there is.

I don't know why I never thought of this before--I'm going to get my horns removed.

For those who are scratching their heads right now, you must understand: Members of my church are accused--with alarming frequency--of having horns. Please note that I've never seen any horns on my own head, but I keep hearing this from numerous sources. It's one of the reasons that losing my hair has me so worried: What if, a few years from now, my horns start coming in? What if they're like wisdom teeth or something--you know, one day, everything's fine, and then, suddenly, there's this shooting pain in my forehead and POP! and out come the horns? With my hair loss accelerating, I wouldn't have anything to cover the horns with! I mean, my wife (who doesn't have horns, either, as far as I can tell) has long, thick, shimmering brown hair, the perfect for concealing horns, be they large, small, straight, curly, or even forked like antlers.

Antlers! What if I grew ANTLERS?!? Would I have to RUT?

Such are all the questions buzzing through my head right now, and I'm sick of the stress. I mean, come on, man, I've been sick. I don't need one more thing to deal with. An anecdote I found on the internet says that J. Golden Kimball, the famous obscenity-spouting church leader, was once performing a baptism in a river. When a mob gathered nearby, he supposedly shouted to them, "Watch yourselves[!] [...] We've got horns, and we'll gore the [fetch] out of you if you come across!" Humor, it seems, was his way of dealing with this problem, back in the days before cosmetic surgery. Thanks to the advances of modern medicine, though, no longer do we have to suffer, trying to assuage our embarrassment through jokes.

See, the problem, as I mentioned before, is that my horns haven't erupted--YET. It would be one thing if the horns were already there, sticking up through my sunroof as I drove, picking up radio stations, scaring small children, etc. If that were the case, I'd just borrow my uncle's power grinder and have at--no fuss, no muss. But, no, my horns still lie dormant inside my cranium, waiting for the moment--when I'm giving an important speech, perhaps, or when I'm kissing my wife--to launch out and ruin my day.

Now I just need to find a plastic surgeon...