Writober: Remember to Buy Yourself a Nice Lamp

A month ago, while visiting my dad, he said to me, “We’ve done well as a family. When I think about where we started … sometimes by the middle of the month, we didn’t have any more milk for you and your brother and I had no idea where we would get more money. Now look at you, your brother and sister - if I hadn’t had an opportunity to come to the United States…”

“I know,” I said. “We have done well. I’m definitely really aware of that. Sometimes I think maybe I haven’t tried hard enough but then I think, from tin roof shack with a dirt floor to getting to sit in front of a computer and get paid to think for a living. Sometimes I don’t understand how it happened.”

He smiled and we moved on to another topic.

On Saturday I was listening to NPR’s Wait Wait … Don’t Tell Me! RZA from Wu-Tang Clan was on. He was talking about his love of all things HGTV. Someone commented that the problem with watching home improvement shows is that it makes you unhappy with your house and makes you want to go out and buy a whole new house.

Or, he said, you buy a nice lamp.

Our family, for sure, is good at buying nice lamps.

I’m thankful for that.