There are days, you know the kind, when things just don’t go as planned. Like when the electricity starts flowing into the house at around 300 volts instead of 220 and lights begin to pop and suddenly the microwave has lost the will to live. Death by electrocution. This comes as an acute shock as your supply of propane gas for your stove has just run out at the same time as the rest of the entire country, literally. Then you begin the hunt for the last remaining bottle of propane in the country, you find it, and they say it is not really there. You say, “What?” It is before your very eyes within your reach even, but, denied. They refuse to sell it to you. Then you go home to watch your wife cook on the hot plate, and your thankful the electricity hasn’t gone off, yet. The water is still on, so while you are cooking the fourth course on the one hot plate you dash out to fill the washing machine, and you forget. You proceed to fill the entire laundry room with three inches of water, but the machine is full now and the kids get to earn extra x-box time if they mop up all the water and if there is still electricity and if the x-box survives 300 volts. Sometimes it just takes a lot of energy to live.

You consider simplification, but think it would be too boring. You might actually have time to pray. You might not have so much stuff that is susceptible to electrocution. You might even throw a ball with your son or look into your wife’s eyes and remember how much you love her. You might have time to see the sights, smell the roses, and do all the other unregrettables, that we don’t have time for now, because of the maintenance of our so very complicated and cluttered lives.

Sometimes we almost consider a change, but then again, why would we want to do that? We would have to give up so much.