Father Max in Hiding

Father Max pulled down the kneeler in front of the pew where he sat, and carefully lowered himself until his arthritic knees were touching the Naugahyde-covered padding. Before assuming a position of prayer, he pulled his knitted hat down over his ears and forehead until it was even with his eyebrows.

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Pondicherry

“Look, I’m not saying they’re lying. But those so-called last words before he drew his last breath? Was they really ‘ponda cherry’? What the hell does that mean?”

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Lawyers in Love: Why I Dumped Ann Coulter

It wasn’t easy, believe me, dumping Ann Coulter and making her stay dumped (more of which later). I learned too late—and not without unappreciated effort on my part to stay the sane, rational one between the two of us—that Ann is not the sort of woman who is good at taking “Yes” for an answer when the question is “Do you want to break up?”

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Why I Dumped Ashley Judd

The Setup

I should have smelled a rat when Nancy asked me to fly to Lexington to “get dinner, see the [inaudible] and have some chuckles.” She had just begun dating some NCAA bigwig who was also the former athletic director at the University of Kentucky.

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A Medical Fable

Mr. Morris went to see Dr. Garfield, who had been treating Mr. Morris for a year or so. At the end of their appointment, Dr. Garfield told Mr. Morris that a follow-up was needed within a few weeks and suggested that Mr. Morris make an appointment for the follow-up before he left the medical offices.

Mr. Morris hacked, wet and phlegmy, into his balled-up fist. He said, “Well. I’m not sure I can do that.”

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Colleagues

What is there to fear? Failure? Failure is nothing to fear. To hear self-help gurus talk, failure is something to which one should continually aspire since those people think it’s the only learning tool always at our disposal.

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Pig Turd Alley

One day as I was strolling down Pig Turd Alley a dog ran by me, maybe a chihuahua. It was headed toward the woods that flanked the dead end of the street where I would turn and begin walking back toward town. 

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