The Pursuit of Happiness

I gave a talk this evening to 300 mothers and daughters at a local church. We had a lovely meal, an elderly gentleman read a poem he'd written about his mother, and then I spoke. The event included a silent auction of purses made by women of the church, and the theme of the evening was "The Pursuit of Happiness."

Afterwards, I stopped to talk with a spunky little woman wearing an interesting silk chiffon skirt of many tiers and many colors. Her short gray hair was spiked up all over head, and her neck and arms were laden with ethnic gold. She was wearing gold mesh kitten heels. She told me that she's 74 years old. And then she told me she'd recently begun selling sex toys.

I kid you not. Sex toys.

There she was, sitting next to the church's music minister, surrounded by presumably godly women, telling me she'd just bought $2,000 worth of sex toys and was now selling them to friends and neighbors. She happened to mention that she planned to give a "soft box" to her recently divorced son for his birthday.

I don't know what that is and didn't ask. I was totally afraid she'd tell me how he was going to pursue happiness with that.