Sister Mary Joseph was delighted, to say the least. A nun comes into a hardware store dragging a floor lamp. Sounds like the first line of a joke, but it isn't. Sister Mary Joseph came in a few days ago with the aforementioned lamp. It seems that the on/off switch was in a permanent state of off, leaving the good Sister unable to enjoy her nun-related reading materials. Now Merle Sneed does not go out of is way to encourage reading such nun-related stuff as the Bible or the Nun's Guide To The Universe, but when a four-foot nun plants herself and her lamp directly in your path, there's no escaping. They possess special powers unknown to regular mortals. She started by telling me a woeful tale of her attempts get the lamp fixed, with a special emphasis on how she was just a poor nun, with little in the way of liquid assets. It seems the lamp repair guys want a hefty fee (at least by impoverished nun standards) to even look at the thing. She tossed out an estimate of forty dollars, plus parts. Sister Mary Joseph told me completely unashamedly that it finally dawned on her to drag the lamp to the hardware store and throw herself on the mercy of an unsuspecting hardware schmuck. That's where I come in. When I explained that we didn't have the right part to fix the lamp, she confidently assured me that, "you will figure it out". "And by the way,", she added sweetly, "when you get it fixed, would someone be able to drive it to my house?" These nuns are real manipulators. The lamp sat for a couple of days and yesterday I finally thought to ask my buddy at work, Bill, to take a look at it. Bill has worked at the store forever and he knows all. He took a look and said that he thought we might have the switch "somewhere". After a bit of rooting around, he found it. It only took about ten minutes to change out the switch and test the lamp. No sooner had I finished, than I got a call from the Sister, asking if it was done. Like she didn't already know. I told her that she could come and pick it up. She hemmed and hawed for a bit, hoping I would offer to deliver it, it think. Finally she said she would be right over to get it. I steeled myself so that her powerful nun mind control could not get to me, but I found myself thinking that I could drop it off after work. I forced myself to slam down the phone's handset. Sister showed up later in the morning to pick up the lamp. She feigned surprise that the repair was only ten bucks, the cost of the part. "No labor charge", she asked? I wasn't sure if it was a question or a command. Merle Sneed cannot be manipulated by some pint-sized nun. Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgmental and cranky