The title of Friedrich Nietzsche's masterwork is actually "Thus Spoke Zarathustra."  I didn't discover that, however, until I had read over 300 pages of it looking for the good stuff.  I mean, doing research for the unit on parenting that my wife is teaching.  Regular readers may recall that she asked me to find out for her if any experts still approved of the spanking of children, and I thought Nietzsche was a name I could trust since he was a big shot smartypants philosopher and all.  
     Turns out that he tended to give his works titles which could easily be misconstrued as offering advice on child rearing. 
     Idiot.
     Anyway, after wading through over 300 pages of Zarathustra this and Zarathustra that and not finding anything at all about the smacking or whacking of young buttocks, I'm in no mood to go back and change the quotation I opened with.  
     I simply don't have the strength.  
     I just don't have the time.
     But I do have just enough strength and time to tell you this much: If I ever again acquire a new imaginary friend, you can be pretty damn sure he or she won't be named Friedrich. 
     Idiot!
 

     Ha!  I wish I knew.  They're denying everything.  Everything!  They're playing with my mind, they are.  They're driving me to distraction, like one of those guys who run those shell games on the streets of New York.  Only they run away when the shell I chose is lifted instead of rolling off the table like that sneaky little pea.  
     "STATISTICS DON'T LIE, PEOPLE!  I KNOW WHAT 3 OUT OF 4 OF YA ARE DOING WITH YOUR BELTS!  MAYBE EVEN AS Y'ALL READ THIS!!"
     Ha!  They pretend not to hear me.  
     Just like the pea.
     Idiots!
 

     When I was a little boy - still of an age when being spanked was a daily possibility - my mother taught me never, ever to take candy from strangers.
     They taught this to us at school, too.
     Well, one day when I was about 7, my twin friends Rick and Tim and I were out walking the neighborhood.  
     There were several bars in our neighborhood, so it was quite natural that we should pass them.  
     Well, as we passed one of these bars - Ford's Bar, by name - a man leaned out of a car that was parked on the street in front of it.  It was a dark car.  The man was old.  The man asked us if we wanted some candy while the car asked us nothing at all
     Rick and Tim immediately said "Sure!" and ran to him.
     I hung back, sure they were headed towards instant death.
     "YOU'RE HEADED TOWARDS INSTANT DEATH!" I believe I even hinted, not wanting their demise weighing on my conscience for the rest of my life when there was a chance I might save both them as well as a ball of mine they had taken and hidden somewhere.  
     "You're being a rude little twerp," Rick or Tim told me, greatly reducing the chances of my saving him from instant death in the future.
     Anyway, both Rick and Tim (or Tim and Rick - who could tell?) ended up getting bright yellow butterscotch button candy in fun yellow cellophane wrappers and I got squat.
     The man drove away.
     Neither Rick or Tim got so much as a sore throat as a result of their reckless behavior.
     I've not been offered candy by a stranger since....

     Last night some 30 years of bitterness over this episode came to an end.
     Last night I went to the grocery store and bought my own butterscotch buttons.
     Preferred Products' butterscotch buttons.  
     A whole 13 ounce bag.  
     Some 62 pieces.
     Each one wrapped in fun yellow cellophane.
     The FDA-mandated nutrition label tells me that they have virtually no vitamins in them.  That a standard serving size is 3 pieces.  That I can expect to get about 70 calories out of those 3 pieces.  And that these candies may have been made in Mexico, Brazil, or Argentina.
     I don't care.
     I hate the taste of butterscotch buttons.
     Plus they're a choking hazard, being hard candy and all.
     But I can't wait to go back to the grocery and buy more!
     
 

     According to Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, neither "spank" nor "spanking" appears even once anywhere in the Bible, so save your reading time for more profitable uses.
     Had Nietzsche thought to pen a little concordance of his own, I might have gotten a bit of sleep last night.
     IDIOT!