It seems that the young  people in our world  have lost the wisdom , or never acquired it , that their mothers and fathers were blessed to have received from their elders , or by bouncing their face off of a brick wall untill the light turned on.

I’m thinking in particular of the complex and perilous task of communicating with the opposite gender. Many a young lady of quality has discovered to her great distress that the message she is sending and the one some young man is receiving are not the same.

   So in the interest of harmony between the sons of Adam and the daughters of Eve I offer up to the hopeful young lady of quality ;

                        THE  LESSON OF THE BIRDS AND THE BEES

   Picture a beautiful spring day. You are sitting in your favorite chair on your front porch, leaning back against the wall with your feet up on the rail.In the drive is your brand new Baby Blue flop top Corvette convertible. The top is down because you love the way the car looks with it down. In your hand is an ice-cold frosty Dr. Pepper in the pop top can. The air is a pleasant seventy degrees, the sky is so blue it makes your heart ache to look at it, the dogwood is blooming, there’s just enough of a breeze to blow the smoke away. You have achieved perfection; with the chair and the car and the can of pop and the beautiful day you are persuaded that it just doesn’t get any better than this.

    As you gaze at the beauty of it all, on the far horizon , you notice five or six tiny specks. gradually they grow in size untill you can see that it’s a flock of crows coming towards you. You sit there and lean and sip and gaze untill there are directly overhead. They circle twice, then swoop down and land on your Baby Blue flop top Corvette convertible. Two perch on the windshield, several on the hood, three or so on the headrest and seats; the white Corinthian leather seats.

And start doing what crows do best, they mess all over your car; on the windshield ,in the seats on the headrests.

  With a cry of rage you set the can of pop down, leap from the chair, over the rail, and sprint to the car screaming  and waving your arms as the birds scatter in a great upward  whoosh. Popping the trunk, you drag out  rags and polish and detailing cream and with an hour of vigorous wiping rubbing and buffing the pride of your life looks as if it just came off the showroom floor.

      With a feeling of triumph and satisfaction, you stroll back to the porch and plop down in your chair. With your eyes fixed lovingly on your Baby Blue flop top Corvette convertible, you lean back against the wall and reach down for your  ice-cold Dr. Pepper in the pop top can. With your feet on the rail and your gaze on the car you raise that can of pop to your lips. Just before you can take a sip, something fuzzy tickles your nose. Rolling your eyes down you slowly pull the can out to see what is on it. You freeze. Crawling around the can top is a honey bee, sipping up the Dr. Pepper. You are scared to death of bees. Afraid to move ,you watch as two or three bees join their mate. Soon there are a dozen of them and more coming. As you watch they begin to cover the can, then your arm; you can feel them in your hair and on your neck. Two crawl up to your lips, you can feel them probing . You remember the new lipstick you put on, with beeswax in it.

One of the bees tastes the lipstick, you hear him talking to the other one; “Say this is our wax, we can make a hive,  hold these big flappy things open and I’ll see whats inside.”

         You raise the only part of your body you dare to move, yours eyes, and look at the car. The crows are back, and they brought all of their friends and some of their family. They are all over the car now, dozens of them, doing what crows do best.

    As you sit there on the porch in frozen fearful  impotent rage you ask,silently, “What have I ever done to deserve these perfidious wrongs ,immedicable woes, and immemorial infamies which have suddenly beset me.”

      So, what is the lesson of the birds and the bees? What is the moral of this woeful tale? What rose of wisdom can a young lady of quality pluck from this nettle of misery.

 I humbly submit  one thought;

As you wind your weary way across this sad old earth, you will avoid an awful lot of trouble if you’ll just keep your top up and your can covered.