Be it Resolved

There are some events in life that are far more humorous when you can look back on them, though they are not humorous at the time. Take, for example, a friend's divorce.

Some years back a friend of mine brought his divorce papers to a lunch so that I could "look them over" and make sure he wasn't missing anything. Believe me, I don't know how to read legelese (that strange language that lawyers still write in, though trying to decipher it is anyone's guess). Anway, the lunch meeting sort of dissolved (great word for a divorce, by the way) into a laugh fest as we began sorting out the peculiarities of his agreement.

Here were some of the better additions we came up with (to the best of my recollection).

Be it resolved that Dear John will spend at least a year mourning the loss of Dear Jane and that he will be racked with guilt and pain of the variety that will satisfy Dear Jane and cause her to smile every night at his misfortune.

Be it resolved that Dear John can't cook a lick and he will thereby be condemned to the purgatory of eating from the value menu at Wendy's every night.

Be it resolved that Dear John will sleep in a cardboard box outside his parents' garage until such a time as he can save a thousand dollars for a deposit on a squalid apartment infested with cockroaches and fleas causing him to itch and otherwise suffer the misfortunes of Job until such a time as he can find a nice dung heap to sit on.

Sort of makes you laugh and cry at the same time, doesn't it? The one positive . . . I think I actually helped the guy with my suggestions and pastoral counsel.